


i swear by the moon

by revecake



Series: swear by the moon [1]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, Breeding Kink, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Magic, Muteness, Praise Kink, Self-Lubrication, fertility myth elements kinda, general dub-con b/c the nature of consent is not strong in many situations here, jjp princes, more like magic baby but elements of both exist, nbtm era inspired, wow would you look at these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25029295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revecake/pseuds/revecake
Summary: It is tradition for mothers to tell their children the tale of the moon’s blessing, for it was she who saw the suffering of her people, and had let starlit tears of mercy slide from her cheeks to turn their barren bodies full and fertile.In other words, there is certainly more than meets the eye to the prince who is lounging curiously on Jinyoung’s soon-to-be marriage bed. In other words, Jinyoung’s betrothed is another second prince whose gaze holds a secret that he’ll never utter aloud.a strange tale of love and more granted by the moon.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung, background markson
Series: swear by the moon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894684
Comments: 38
Kudos: 134





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> this is like a 28k long oneshot + epilogue. i'm so grateful if you read the whole thing through :').  
> basically, i'm not over nbtm aesthetics and wanted to write a kind of darker, strange fairytale, so here we are. please enjoy!

_absentee arrival_

Jinyoung receives word of his newly betrothed status in his annual absence at their summer cottage.

From a recent treaty with their sister kingdom across the everlasting forest separating the two, his father’s letter to him simply reads:

_Jinyoung,_

_Her Royal Majesty Seoyoon of Lunaris, has graciously granted our request of a shared border between our lands for travel and trade. As expected, I’m sure._

_You will be pleased to hear that she’s also agreed upon a marriage to establish our treaty - an exchange between two kingdoms for our second sons._

_No matter, Prince Jaebeom will be a lovely match. As you read this, we are most likely settling him into your quarters for the night._

_I’m sure you know of him well already - don’t be shy Jinyoung. After all, you are soon to be wed._

_As always,_

_Father_

Jinyoung folds the letter closed along the same three creases, pressing into the wax crest lightly with his thumbnail.

A betrothal to the second prince of Lunaris. And it’s true, Jinyoung leans out into the brisk night air, considering the news with a quirk of a smile beneath his palm - he has heard all about him.

The moon is a half-cut eye, weeping her milky tears across the purple sky.

_let me recount the beginnings of a fairytale, more fact than fiction, little one_

Lunaris has been their sister kingdom for as long as Jinyoung has lived.

If Solare is the blazing sun hung by a banner of snarling, winged lions, then Lunaris is her exact opposite. She is the glittering full moon in a deep night painted by stars and fluttering doves. It’s a wonder they’ve finally managed to establish relations after maintaining such a heavenly distance.

Despite their prolonged separation, Jinyoung is intimately familiar with the kingdom’s coming and goings, their economic advantages, and even gossip about the royal family.

In order: (1) a small navy fleet stationed at the tip of the western-most bay for an odd summer period, (2) fine metalwork and an abundance of kept doves (3) and most prominently, everything concerning the second-born prince, Im Jaebeom.

Fair of skin, black of hair, and completely mute as far as anyone knows. Fair enough to be as pretty as a woman, if not more agreeable in his silence.

And there’s more to the rumors.

Jinyoung has dug into the sparsest depths of their library’s records on Lunaris. From a secondhand account scrawled on rough parchment, he learned the bare outlines of a household fairytale - how, on the brink of its decimation, the people of the kingdom cried out to their goddess, and she in return, shed tears in the form of gentle moonlight upon their starved, dried bodies and gave them _life_.

Jinyoung knows why Jaebeom is betrothed to him and not to his boisterous third sister nor to the reluctant crown prince, his first brother. At least, that’s according to his father’s will.

Jinyoung intends for it to be so much more.

He intends for it to be the crown, to have its weight in gold upon his brow.

_so have you done this before?_

By the time Jinyoung strides through the castle’s empty halls, it is indeed the silver hour of night. Quiet but not dead. The marble glows, softened into pale flesh, and his own figure seems to cut a sharp contrast against it in pure, glimmering white. For a prince of Solare, Jinyoung has always held an inordinate fondness for lone strolls on austere, moonlit nights. Tonight, he supposes, might be the last time he goes unaccompanied.

His hand on the gilded handle of his room pauses, locked like cold, gnarled bones. Contemplation, trepidation, or even anticipation, perhaps. 

He enters on a slip of breath. An audible shift comes from beneath an odd lump of shadow.

Jinyoung has always kept the double windows facing his bed unguarded, and now, the familiar spool of moonlight unravels in a bright halo on his bed.

It’s not quite appropriate nor reasonable to meet your betrothed for the first time rumpled in _your_ bedsheets - but Jinyoung understands that tradition is only a loosely wielded sword in their family. And even more, Jinyoung is intimately familiar with his father’s intentions, as well as if they were his own.

As much as he trusts his father’s word, it is simply an understatement for Im Jaebeom, second-born of Lunaris, currently gazing at Jinyoung with glassy eyes from beneath his well-worn blankets.

The moon sheds her veil across his skin, and Jaebeom wears it as natural as a blessing. Jinyoung will admit, he spends a few silent moments taking in the wonder of Jaebeom’s sleepy blinks. The pale light suits him. Better than the errant mix of silks and embroidered jewels now hanging loose across his chest.

Despite their shared silence, Jinyoung introduces himself the only way he knows how.

“I’m Jinyoung, second prince of Solare.” He slides closer on the bed, chancing a handshake. “Your betrothed.”

Jaebeom’s black eyes flicker from his mouth to his hand, but he doesn’t acknowledge either. Surely, the muteness can’t mean complete incomprehensibility. Jinyoung can’t read anything from the prince’s tilted stare, nothing beyond a strange sort of unblinking curiosity.

Jinyoung is slowly re-considering his choice of communication, when Jaebeom approaches him in turn. It’s simply a closing of the rest of the distance between them, their clothed knees bumping together on the bed, but Jaebeom’s gaze is expectant, heavy.

Jinyoung doesn’t move, and neither does Jaebeom. He’s close, his nose practically brushing under Jinyoung’s raised chin. An odd position, as if Jinyoung might be baring his neck.

He feels a sliver of breath across his neck, and Jinyoung dares to brush the same light kiss across Jaebeom’s cheekbone.

“Well,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone who might actually reply, “we are to be wed, after all.”

He pushes his body gently into Jaebeom’s, and the other prince goes willingly.

Jinyoung has laid with men before, but embracing Jaebeom begins with the most awkward affair of tangled limbs and stiff, dressy clothes. Jinyoung is in well-fitting summer wear, loose enough to brush aside with a few buttons - but Jaebeom seems to have fallen asleep in the whole formal attire.

Openings laced shut with tiny silk ribbons, hard silver embroidery determined to make button-holes impossibly slick, and each crease fitted perfectly to the curves beneath. Jinyoung mutters a few choice words at Lunaris fashion as he fumbles with it all. There’s no way Jaebeom dresses himself, and as if to confirm it, the other prince only watches him inscrutably, propped back against the pillows.

Heeled boots are tossed to the floor, and Jinyoung sighs at the sight of gartered black socks. He undoes them with quickly waning patience.

Still, a familiar heat begins to bloom as Jaebeom looks up at him with parted lips, finally bare beneath the moonlight.

The flush of cheeks stained pink. His hair spilling in rumpled waves across the pillow, longer than Jinyoung has ever worn his own. It’s strange and absolutely lovely on him.

When Jinyoung lays his own naked body over Jaebeom’s, it feels like they fit as one. Jinyoung traces his fingers over Jaebeom’s cock, Jaebeom’s quiet breath hitches into a whine, and Jinyoung knows what he’s doing now.

There’s a certain scent to him, Jinyoung thinks as he ruts his cock messily against Jaebeom’s own. Soft and fragrant as if his skin carried the perpetual warmth of fresh bath-water. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but it can’t be a perfume. Not with the way his tongue comes away with only the clean taste of heat.

They’re both leaking now, the head of Jinyoung’s cock slipping almost painfully against Jaebeom’s. Jinyoung tries to readjust his grip, but after a few thrusts, his moan mixes with Jaebeom’s gasp as he slides into the dip of Jaebeom’s thigh instead.

To his surprise, Jaebeom pushes him away only to lift his knees to his ears, opening himself up in one fluid motion. There’s that same expectant look, a hint shyer as his eyes flicker away to somewhere left of Jinyoung’s head.

Jinyoung can clearly see the thick expanse of his thighs now, the tight pink hole fluttering between them.

He’s stunned to say the least. “So I take it you’ve done this before?”

Jaebeom simply spreads himself wider, one hand sliding down to tug gently at an exposed cheek. His cock is still hard, wet trails of pre-cum sticking to his stomach. He looks up at Jinyoung from under the twin moons on his eyelid, teeth peeking out against his lip.

Jinyoung has been with his fair share of men and women, but nothing in the past can compare to Jaebeom.

Because when Jinyoung presses a finger to the open heat between Jaebeom’s legs, it comes away wet.

Jinyoung gapes down at Jaebeom, his hand glistening and poised between them.

“ _you’re wet_.”

Jaebeom only blinks up at him, a small furrow between his brow, a little bit of a pout. As if to say _that’s what you’re worried about?_

Jaebeom is a man, a royal prince in his own right, and he’s unlike anyone Jinyoung has ever bedded before.

He opens up for Jinyoung, easy and warm and soaking Jinyoung’s dick in his own wetness. His mouth falls open with punctured fragments of sound, and Jinyoung comes to the sight of him. Head thrown back, throat tensed around a silent cry, and a trail of shiny slick spilling over Jinyoung’s dick. Like he truly enjoyed it, being fucked by another man. 

The night passes on, with the moon’s spotlight shifting further up Jaebeom’s bare body. Jinyoung sits with his shoulders cooling against the headboard, considering the humming cicadas in time to his own thoughts. The other prince sleeps on next to him, sprawled loosely across the stained blankets.

For all the rumors, the outrageous gossip, Jinyoung thinks he may have found a sliver of truth.

(That is, the second prince of Lunaris is capable of bearing children).

He can’t help the way his gaze catches on the remains of his own release between Jaebeom’s closed thighs. In the end, he covers Jaebeom’s legs with a light sheet and settles into bed behind him.

On the first night of his betrothal, Jinyoung dreams of a golden crown bathed in cold moonlight. Unconsciously, his knuckles brush over the curve of Jaebeom’s bare nape.

_learned habits_

Jinyoung arrives for breakfast with Jaebeom in tow. Not touching, but there’s something obstinate to the way Jaebeom has stuck to his side from washing, to dressing, all the way to breakfast seating.

Yuqi stops picking at her eggs to stare brightly between the two of them. Jinyoung can already sense the mischievousness behind the earnest curiosity.

Mark’s dismissiveness lags a second longer at his side, but as usual, Jinyoung’s affairs are only minor annoyances to ignore over morning tea and milk.

It’s Father who meets Jinyoung’s eye with a wry stare, as if he might guess everything that happened last night. Jinyoung ducks his head surreptitiously, eyes dragging over Jaebeom’s idle daze.

Given the way he’s dressed, he supposes even the palace maids could guess. For every piece that Jinyoung haphazardly disassembled in the dark, he could only pick up and promptly set back on the floor, deeming it all a lost cause in the early morning. 

Jaebeom had only stared at the flimsy pile, blinking sleepily as if he had never encountered such clothing in his life.

So now, Jaebeom is introduced before the Solare court in only a sheer white blouse and a pair of Jinyoung’s old riding trousers. In the wash of bright sunlight, he had only realized then how broad Jaebeom’s shoulders were, how much bigger he was than Jinyoung.

Jaebeom shakes his head lightly, flicking back the long, loose hair curling around his face.

(Jinyoung reminds himself to approach Jaebeom somehow about a wardrobe fitting).

With breakfast and first meetings, Jinyoung is reminded again of the other prince’s odd muteness.

“Jaebeom, I’m Yuqi! Third princess of Solare.” Jinyoung’s younger sister projects pure enthusiasm from the other end of the table as only she can.

She receives a small, sleepy stare as Jaebeom simultaneously picks a piece of fruit off his fork with his teeth.

Mark’s blank expression flickers before he states his own title. “Mark. Firstborn prince.” His lips twitch with the slightest smirk, and Jinyoung has to keep his face still. After all, Father is watching.

Jaebeom tilts his head minutely, glancing between them before swallowing down half a slice of strawberry-stuffed pastry.

Father smiles benevolently and breakfast resumes as usual. Jinyoung asks pointed question after question about the last political meeting he had oh so conveniently been left out of, and Mark brushes each one off onto Father’s indulgent patience.

—“Brother, how many concessions did we list for our part of the agreement?” 

Mark flicks his fork through the watery yolk, propping his forehead lazily against his palm. “Enough to make a gesture of goodwill.”

Jinyoung opens his mouth to push further, but it seems his brother is particularly short-tempered this morning.

His fork falls noisily against the plate. “You know, it doesn’t even matter. Lunaris barely has any military power on the greater continent, and since you’re really the only one who got something substantial from the deal, why don’t you just butt out on discussions you’re never included in?”

Mark’s glare is turned on Jaebeom with a kind of odd harshness, and Jinyoung wants to hiss at him for being like this. For him to be so rude, to have such blatant disregard for diplomacy when he’s the firstborn. _Especially_ given that he’s the firstborn.

“Now, now-,” Father’s usual platitudes fall over the table, and Jinyoung is always in the right, even as he has to respect Mark’s “honesty.” Disdain should be called what it is, he thinks, allowing himself to glare into his lukewarm tea.

Among the usual sunlit mundanity, the flares of age-old annoyances, Jaebeom interrupts him with a small tug to his sleeve.

And of course he doesn’t say anything, but he gazes at Jinyoung, so curious and earnest.

It’s the first time Jinyoung feels his stubborn anger at breakfast fade so suddenly.

Jaebeom’s very presence in his life is defined by hazy moonlight on tousled sheets, but he looks at Jinyoung. Not with worry, but something so shamelessly honest. 

He tries to infuse something reassuring into his smile, and Jaebeom blinks once before turning back to his plate. His sleeve falls free from the other’s grasp, but Jinyoung is acutely aware of the way it's creased, still pinched above his wrist. 

Jinyoung leaves breakfast again with Jaebeom in tow. Not touching, but he can still feel the way a hand had pulled at his sleeve.

-

Outside the parlor is a servant waiting with a ducked head of tawny hair and a hunched, gangly figure. Someone Jinyoung has never seen before. 

He fumbles to bow, twice as deep before Jinyoung and Jaebeom. “Your Highnesses -”

He rises in a flurry, and Jinyoung is reminded of a nervous colt, albeit one much taller than the usual ones in their stables. 

He directs his gaze at Jinyoung, but he seems to be consciously keeping himself from glancing over at Jaebeom. 

“I’m Yugyeom, Your Highness.” Another unexpected bow. “I’m to remain here in Solare to serve Prince Jaebeom -” Another quick flicker towards Jinyoung, “-and of course Your Highness, should you need anything.” 

Jinyoung watches curiously as something close to recognition curls over Jaebeom’s idle expression. A hint of fondness, perhaps. 

“You’re welcome to, but-” As Jinyoung takes a casual step to his nearest class, it’s as expected. Jaebeom automatically follows with the mingled echo of a second step. 

He smiles wryly back at Yugyeom. “I think you might have something better to do than follow me around all day.” 

It’s somewhat of a dismissal, and Jinyoung doesn’t mean for it to be cruel. When Yugyeom stammers out a nervous assent, Jinyoung makes it a point to direct him to the stables bordering the castle's outer fields.

—- In retrospect, Jinyoung pauses over his notes, wondering if he should’ve kept Yugyeom around, if only to task him with keeping Jaebeom awake. 

The tutors had been surprised at the presence of an extra prince, but surely there was no reason Jaebeom, as a fellow secondborn, couldn’t benefit from the material in Jinyoung’s lessons. 

Standard conduct at state functions, operating court in the absence of the king and any others in the following chain of succession, and diplomacy in the face of aggression. 

It’s all invigorating to Jinyoung, it really is. Now if only the material was shifted slightly towards dethroning a firstborn’s right to the crown. 

Well, he asks for too much sometimes. 

Though, it seems Jaebeom has absolutely zero interest in any of Jinyoung’s. 

During the first lesson, he had popped his head right over Jinyoung’s arm to glance at his textbook on crucial war imports. Jinyoung had hesitantly wondered if he could read, only for the other prince to flop back against his side of the table with a half-lidded sigh. 

Now, nearing noon and deep into the intricacies of Solare’s maneuvers during the third Southern Raid, Jaebeom is openly dozing by the nearest open window. Jinyoung sees the way his instructor pauses with every other sentence to glance over at the other’s prone form, and he admits, it is an amusing distraction. 

Improper, but amusing nonetheless. He hides a grin as he resumes his notes on resource allocation. 

When they break for lunch, Jinyoung takes it by the open window, the only thing that seems to have caught Jaebeom’s elusive attention.

Jaebeom readily reaches for the plate of smoked meats and bread Jinyoung brings from the kitchen. He settles it against one propped leg, picking at the pieces with his bare hands, as his eyes rove widely over the garden outside. 

So he likes food, sleeping, and the gardens (and maybe sex). It’s as much Jinyoung could discern from someone who doesn’t talk. 

“Why don’t you go out and explore?” He nods towards the nearest open grounds of neat strawberry plots, leaning against the wooden frame. 

Jaebeom looks at him with startled eyes as if noticing him for the first time since breakfast. He dangles an errant foot beyond the window, his single bites slowing to small nibbles around the roll in his hands. 

How odd. It’s as if he chooses to let Jinyoung’s attempts at communication, verbal or otherwise, simply slide over him. Like a duck ruffling its oiled feathers in water. 

Jinyoung, before he can decide otherwise, touches Jaebeom’s ankle lightly. The other prince shifts, if only out of surprise, and Jinyoung latches the window closed with a quick hand. 

“You should roam the grounds safely, on your own two feet.” Jinyoung pats once more at Jaebeom’s leg, and he presses his lips together with a small huff. 

Idly, Jinyoung supposes this must be what an argument with Jaebeom is like. Empty words and the frustrations of honest expression. 

Jinyoung postpones his afternoon class to walk the familiar twisting path from the marbled interior to the trail of paved tiles leading into the gardens. 

As always, Jaebeom follows - follows until Jinyoung reaches the open landing where slick white stone fades into the edges of earth. 

Then, Jinyoung pauses too as Jaebeom stares, mouth parted at the expanse of sky and willow trees brushing murmurs in the wind, the light shower of peony blooms in refracted sunlight. 

It’s been a while since Jinyoung has walked his own palace gardens, but at Jaebeom’s wonder, he realizes how it must all look. 

Solare has always been at the height of prosperity in the summer. The gardens, with their mazes of fruit and flowers, have always been used to prove such. 

He pushes lightly at the small of Jaebeom’s back. “Go on.” 

The other prince’s face is flush with the same shy pink of their flowers. Sun-soaked, there’s a different kind of beauty to him surrounded by vivid color and distant bird calls. 

If he was marble softened to smooth flesh in the moonlight, then today he’s truly alive. 

Jinyoung nudges him again, and this time, Jaebeom goes. Still, he’s looking back at Jinyoung with that honest smile. Jinyoung idly notes the way his cheeks push up, so full, that those slim eyes crease closed. 

He leaves with one last dragging glance, calling into the path of arched boughs that Jaebeom has already wandered into. 

“Don’t give the maids too much trouble!” 

(Glancing away from his afternoon classes, he does indeed see Jaebeom drifting past the window. His hair and clothes are even more rumpled from a beautiful mix of the early summer wind and close-hanging branches as a train of exasperated maids trail behind him.

Jinyoung enjoys the sight more than he would ever like to admit). 

-

In the hollow quiet of warm water and fragrant oil soaking into his bones, Jinyoung allows himself this single moment of peaceful weightlessness. 

He’s floating, muscles loosening incrementally, and the only thought on his mind is the pleasant sunshine he had remembered when he had led Jaebeom to the gardens. He sinks down further, sighing as the water laps up to his ears. 

Then - the raucous echo of high-pitched protests and the bathroom door being opened without pause rings out from beneath the thick water. 

Jaebeom peeks through, his eyes immediately fixing on Jinyoung. Wide and completely unabashed. While it’s true they’ve already seen each other naked and more, Jinyoung automatically wraps his arms around his dripping chest. 

“Jaebeom-” 

A maid barrels through seconds later, fingers slitted over her eyes. “Your Highness, please excuse my indiscretion! I promise to keep a closer watch in the future, this will never happen again — come this way Prince Jaebeom, you can have your own bath later-”

More maids arrive in a flurry of skirts and heels slipping on wet tile. 

And Jaebeom eventually lets himself be tugged away, small, obstinate hands fluttering over his arms. But Jinyoung is aware of the way he lingers on the spot for a moment longer, the unblinking intensity of his eyes on Jinyoung’s soaked hair, his naked body. 

Eventually, the footsteps fade and he flops back into the water, letting it rise over his lips. It’s lukewarm by now, but Jinyoung’s thoughts are preoccupied beyond his usual afternoon bath. 

He really can’t understand Jaebeom. Or really, the nature of his relationship with Jaebeom. 

Their first meeting last night had been an odd introduction of intimacy. Jinyoung can’t deny he had been curious, that seeing Jaebeom sprawled across his bed didn’t arouse certain...intentions. 

It only seems to complicate what’s between them _now_. How Jaebeom even sees him. Coupling once doesn’t seem to have guaranteed anything. He may follow Jinyoung around, but he refuses to communicate with him - with the garden today, it had taken quite the urging to get Jaebeom to simply go off and explore. 

Beyond last night, there was no hint of Jaebeom seeking out his touch, nothing more to his blank, open gaze. 

It all makes Jinyoung bury himself deeper into the water, closing his eyes. His errant thoughts float from his mouth to the surface with a stream of bubbles. 

With what he’s considered so far, it’s all seemingly irrelevant now because of Jaebeom bursting into his bath uninvited. Because of Jaebeom looking at him without hesitation, naked and wet, with what - attraction? curiosity? 

And now, what should he do with that? 

Jinyoung blows bubbles for a second longer beneath the cold water before surfacing. 

He mops a hand over his face and resolves to think it over in bed. 

-

Somehow, with everything Jinyoung had considered, the one thing he did not expect is for a freshly-bathed Jaebeom to clamber loosely onto his lap. 

As if in an inverse parallel to last night, Jaebeom sits over him, clad in another shirt that bares his collarbones and silk pants that cling tightly to his thighs. Jinyoung suspects they’re leftovers from his closet again. 

And it’s this odd intimacy defining them again. Jaebeom sat firmly over his crotch even though he had only followed Jinyoung around with nothing more than the innocence of a lost lamb. Now, he still has that guileless look, framed by soft black locks. Softer, more alluring even, now that they’re loosely tangled from the bath. 

He doesn’t know what Jaebeom was told in Lunaris or if this is something from last night imprinted in his mind - 

“Again?” Jaebeom shifts purposefully in his lap, biting his lip pink, and Jinyoung cocks a brow. 

And well, he has his own plans to put into play. He fits his hands over Jaebeom’s hips, clenching his fingers in reply. 

It takes significantly less fumbling before Jaebeom is slipping Jinyoung’s cock into himself. And it’s still true, Jinyoung wasn’t imagining it in the shades of moonlight. Jaebeom is hot inside, just as wet as he was yesterday. This time he rides Jinyoung relentlessly, thighs tensing and shaking as the scratchy echoes of gasps and moans fall from his parted lips. 

Distantly, Jinyoung tightens his hold on Jaebeom’s waist, soothing his thumbs over the soft skin of a flat stomach - given the frequency of their nightly activities, he wonders if ( _when_ ) he might start showing. 

Will it be just like a woman or is there some kind of trickery to those apparently blessed by the moon?

An unbidden impulse jolts in his gut at the thought of it. 

(Jaebeom cradling a babe to him, the soft teariness of his gaze swelling over as he presses a kiss to its bare, fragrant cheek. How he might look at Jinyoung with their child held between them. What he might _say_ then).

Jinyoung comes suddenly, his body shaking at the unexpected intensity. 

He can’t tear his eyes away as Jaebeom’s lips part, a silent “ _oh._ ” He watches as the other man soon follows, stretching languidly above him, his thighs clenching around his spent cock. 

Jaebeom finally looks at him, sweaty, flushed, hair matted across his skin, panting and satisfied. Satisfied and eyes glimmering - oddly alert. Jinyoung pulls him down and kisses him for the first time. 

It’s barely anything more than a peck, a _pop_ between their lips, but Jaebeom is absolutely fascinated. He chases after Jinyoung’s mouth again and again, smearing closed wet kisses between them, until Jinyoung holds him still by the back of his head and opens his mouth with his tongue. By the end of it, Jaebeom finally lays against his chest, thoroughly kissed out and dozing with a slight, swollen pout. 

Jinyoung falls asleep with one arm lightly resting across Jaebeom’s back and an image tugging at him from disparate wisps of a dream behind his closed lids. 

He sees it now, sharpening at the edges, gold and piercing at the forefront of his mind: the weight of a crown upon his brow and a beautiful child with Jaebeom’s eyes waiting at the foot of the throne. 

_a tactician’s son_

Jinyoung pauses on his way to Father’s chambers to watch Jaebeom frolick about in the eastern garden beyond the open banisters. 

It’s almost palace routine now for anyone to catch a glimpse of the other second prince in some part of the surrounding gardens. It’s always with a bit of a shock - dirt-strewn disheveled clothing, his long hair tangled with jeweled bits of flowers, and a pleasant pink burn to his cheeks. 

Perhaps Jinyoung likes it more than his or Mark’s reserved neatness. 

There’s a sort of life in Jaebeom’s carefree adoration of fallen petals that he hasn’t ever seen, even in the height of Solare’s summers. It’s exciting even. 

Jinyoung watches his betrothed for a second longer. He notes the third pair of hand-me-downs on Jaebeom’s figure, a double-laced shirt flapping open around his pale neck and brown trousers spilling over his boots. The sun is in full effect overhead, and in turn, the translucent shape of Jaebeom’s body is startlingly clear beneath the white linen. 

Speaking of - there’s still Jaebeom’s wardrobe fitting. Glimpses of shirts with tight white embroidery over creased collars have flitted across the gaps between lessons, lulls in idle conversation. 

It seems Jaebeom’s only inclination is towards the grass stains on his knees. Jinyoung watches him lay his head across his bent knees, close enough that his loose hair catches in hydrangea thorns. 

Jinyoung wonders if he would be amenable towards earrings, the long dangling types that sing in the wind. They would stand out among his long locks, trace the sharp cut of his jaw. 

He tucks away the images, rippling like waves of refracted sun across a pond, and knocks twice outside of his father’s study. 

-

“How have you been, Jinyoung?”

Smile, a bare tilt at the corner of his lips. 

Father’s warmth is simultaneously a familial dread and comfort. 

“As always, Father.”

Father’s expression is a reflection of his own. Poised and always expectant, with those patient grey eyes. 

“Then, I trust you’ve gotten to know your betrothed well.” 

Always knowing. As Jinyoung had hoped. He feels his own eyes crease tightly as his smile grows.

“I think it would be good if the royal physicians could schedule a checkup for him.”

Father’s lashes flicker, a bare disturbance of dust in the shaded room. “Oh?” 

“Nothing urgent,” Jinyoung affirms with the same nonchalance. “In a few weeks from now perhaps, just to see how he’s adjusting.” 

“After all, life in Lunaris is bound to be different from Solare.” 

A whisper between them, throwaway and meaningless if not for the way Jinyoung is first and foremost his father’s son - and they’ve always thought in the same way. 

“Of course.” Father folds his hands, resting his chin atop them, as pleasant as a light breeze outside. 

“I want him to be as comfortable as possible before we settle on the marriage.” Jinyoung’s tone doesn’t slip at all. He dips his head, softens the edges of his gaze enough to play at the semblance of cloistered affection. 

“Of course. I trust you know best, Jinyoung.” Jinyoung blinks at the numb feeling of warmth, growing like a bruise beneath his chest. _Always_ echoes in his mind, and he wishes it wasn’t such a desperate shadow of his own voice, that he wasn’t still bowing his head, waiting for the weight of an approving hand. 

“Thank you, Father.”

Father smiles, as imperceptible as always, and Jinyoung can only wish he was his firstborn son.

Closing the door and sagging beside it, he falters to calm the jack-rabbit pace of his heart. _Tap-tap-tap-tap_ goes each finger of his right hand against his thigh in a looping four-count. A habitual tick that, even as a child, he could remember hiding beneath his covers when Father bid him goodnight.

The second four-count stutters in an ugly caesura. 

“What, couldn’t get Daddy’s favor again?” Mark’s long, smug face comes leering around the column. Even in a day full of fractions of sunshine, his brother’s presence stains the very light with his tall shadow. 

Jinyoung doesn’t reply. 

“Why do you keep trying so hard? Father already gave you a pretty new toy, thinking that would be enough to satisfy you - but it’s never going to be enough, is it?” Mark is stepping closer, pushing his dripping words and flashing eyes into his face, before dancing away with a smile filled with teeth. 

Dance-in-and-out. Always first. Always out of reach. Even now, Jinyoung can recall the last time Mark’s bony fingers held his chubby own, when they used to play in the gardens together. No promises of kingship or birthright to change the way Jinyoung would look up at his brother, dazed at how bright the sun was behind his head. 

“Why you keep trying to vie for the crown, I don’t understand.” Mark walks away in that deceptively lazy way of his. Hands in his pockets, a relaxed tilt to his spine, but he’s leaning back, shoulders poised, because he’s always waiting for Jinyoung to react. 

He’s never going to let Jinyoung have the last word. 

Jinyoung digs his teeth into his tongue - _I wouldn’t expect you to._ He doesn’t say it aloud. 

“It’s not like I ever wanted it.” Mark shrugs so casually, and it’s bait, a trap with enamel-white teeth snapping right at the tip of his nose. There are times like these when Jinyoung hates Mark, hates him for everything he is and everything he can’t be.

And it’s at times like these that Jinyoung doesn’t hold back, doesn’t hesitate to run his brother through with the sharpened, searing edge of a sword in hand. 

“Well, we may both prefer to lay with men,” Jinyoung smiles, watching as Mark’s arrogance finally fractures with an ugly crack, straight down the middle, “but at the very least I’ll get an heir out of it.”

Mark only stills. Over his back, there’s a flash of disgust, storm clouds parting with a lightning strike in his eyes. 

“ _Freak_.” 

He tosses the word over his shoulder and leaves, desperate in his cruelty. 

Jinyoung doesn’t know who he means it for, but his thoughts wander back to Jaebeom with a smug sense of satisfaction for the rest of the day. 

_learned habits.2_

Jaebeom does not reach for him in the slight distance between their breakfast seats. Nor does he seek Jinyoung out when he breaks from his lessons. In fact, it’s as if Jinyoung doesn’t seem to exist to him outside of the bedroom or when Jinyoung comes to find him in the gardens.

And then, despite it all, with no words or touches ever exchanged between them, Jaebeom will tilt his head and greet him with a wide-eyed kiss. 

It catches Jinyoung off guard the first time. In a moment of idleness, he had decided to fetch Jaebeom himself for dinner. Even with his ever-present entourage of fussing maids, it’s been quite the palace-wide effort to find the second prince within the expansive grounds

Jinyoung simply takes his time and wanders. It’s been too long since he’s given himself a moment to breathe like this. 

And maybe, because he begins to enjoy the sun’s pattern on willow leaves in the same way that captivates Jaebeom, he eventually finds the other prince in a place he had long forgotten about. 

An old, faded summer pavilion. What once must have once been a glossy, untouched effigy of marble among the blooming greenery and birdsong is now overrun by hanging vines and insidious tree roots. Next to it is a decrepit fountain, filled with stillwater. The palace gardeners must have abandoned this place long ago - and so has Jinyoung, since he had last been there with Mark in tow. 

Inside, Jinyoung finds Jaebeom, resting with his eyes closed against a grimy pillar. He can’t tell whether he’s actually sleeping, but he can’t resist. He smooths a tangled strand of hair behind his ear, letting his hand rest there for a moment. A warm brand against Jaebeom’s nape.

Then - Jaebeom’s eyes flit open. They’re nose to nose, Jinyoung caught hovering and Jaebeom curious. 

Jinyoung doesn’t know what he expects - Jaebeom bursting into a fit of agitation like a wild bird or maybe pushing him away with audible hurt - but instead, Jaebeom inches closer. 

He gets a soft peck. Jinyoung’s stillness seems to encourage Jaebeom to kiss him again, this time with his tongue sweeping over the seam of his lips. 

The entire time Jaebeom’s eyes are open and gazing brightly into his. 

Jinyoung eventually presses back, but the timing is awkward, stilted, and by then, dinner has grown cold. 

-

But Jinyoung learns something after that, that Jaebeom's eyes will flicker to his mouth and he’ll be greeted by a kiss. 

No matter where they are, when Jinyoung chances upon Jaebeom (because it’s always Jinyoung seeking him out and never the other way around), the other prince will come close enough for their cheeks to brush and press his lips to Jinyoung’s in a bare peck. 

Sometimes it’s just that. Sometimes there’s a bit more pressure, the warm trail of a wet tongue as Jaebeom steps away. Jinyoung is never sure what it means, this play of affection. 

Because Jaebeom never touches him beyond that. No hand tugging at his arm or an embrace to mirror their intimacy in the bedroom. 

Jinyoung knows how to touch Jaebeom at night, how to open him up, how to get him dripping over his thigh as his mouth opens with stuttered hints of a voice. It seems backwards, that Jaebeom will cling to his shoulders with his bare hands under the plush moonlight, but he won’t even brush against Jinyoung’s side when they walk together in the morning.

As with everything involving Jaebeom, Jinyoung is left to flounder with his own rigid logic and misconceptions. 

He approaches the matter as he would with anything else. He tests how far he can push, and then goes a little further. 

In the end, he supposes it’s all about learned habits. About approaching a shaky fawn and holding out your hand, waiting for it to nudge its horned head into your palm first. 

It’s one of those mornings after their nightly activities that has Jinyoung feeling less than awake and just a little bit sour. There’s an odd crick to his neck and a stiffness to his hips that has yet to be dislodged. And maybe it’s because he’s still blinking away the blur of sunshine that he doesn’t think twice about falling against Jaebeom’s shoulder. 

There’s a small shift, but Jaebeom doesn’t shrug him off. He stays and lets Jinyoung blink awake the sleep, the shock of surprise as they both stand still in the hallway. 

Sunlight seeps in through stretches of open windows, and Jinyoung pushes a little closer. Jaebeom smells sleep-soft and fragrant in another worn shirt, solid warmth beneath his cheek. 

Eventually, when he rights himself and is awake enough, he sees the way Jaebeom drifts to him. Their arms brush tangibly the entire way to breakfast from how closely Jaebeom remains at his side, and Jinyoung understands with a tiny crooked smirk. 

Jinyoung has always been a diligent teacher, and Jaebeom is a wide-eyed book with pages waiting to be filled.

After kissing, a casual touch seems to follow naturally. 

Jaebeom still greets him with a direct kiss, and Jinyoung allows it. With each one, he draws it out more, a little longer, doesn’t let Jaebeom skitter away so quickly. When their lips part, Jinyoung will turn his cheek against Jaebeom’s, lightly grip his wrist through his creased sleeve. 

He’ll pull Jaebeom to him, and when he lets go, Jaebeom stays just a little longer each time with his soft, dark stare suspended in the wordless space between them. 

At night, he clings tighter after they both finish, leaving his arms locked around Jaebeom’s bare waist. And when morning comes, he finds Jaebeom curled back against his chest, touching, closer than before. 

He makes an effort to slip into the gardens more often, tucking a book and loose parchments under his arm. 

As always, a quick kiss as _hello_. 

More often than not, Jaebeom seems to occupy himself with handfuls of fallen, drooping flowers. They slip through his fingers as he examines them one by one, pressing bruises over their delicate veins until they finally fall apart under his touch. 

It’s such a recursively purposeless action that Jinyoung decides to teach Jaebeom something else. He weaves his long fingers through Jaebeom’s stubby own and shows him how to twine together the pulpy stems of dandelions and hydrangeas into momentary flower crowns. 

“There,” he glances over at Jaebeom, propping up the flopping crown between their sprawled legs. 

He’s nowhere as good as Yuqi, who had been the one to teach him, but Jaebeom only looks up at him with open-mouthed wonder. 

Then, he’s smiling at Jinyoung because of a sloppy, minimal effort, flower crown. 

Soft-cheeked, eyes closed, the stretched bow of his lips emanating audible happiness. Jinyoung wonders what Jaebeom’s laugh might sound like. 

Eventually, Jinyoung teaches Jaebeom’s alternatives. Not a kiss each time because he’ll brush away at the last second, his nose glancing across Jaebeom’s cheek. But he’ll wrap a hand around the other prince’s waist and squeeze in the pantomime of an embrace. If it’s not a kiss, there’s always some other form of touch so Jaebeom knows what he can and cannot do. 

(More often than not, it’s still a kiss. He learns something himself - Jaebeom is ever responsive, even without words). 

At breakfast, it might be a head of downy black hair nudging against his shoulder in a fit of leftover drowsiness. A greeting amidst fresh greenery that starts with hands and then lips - Jaebeom tugging him closer by the end of it by their still intertwined fingers.

Jinyoung can’t deny how much he enjoys the look on Mark’s face when he fits his palm to the small of Jaebeom’s back as they pass each other in the hallways. 

Jinyoung still can’t define what Jaebeom is to him. His betrothed, surely. Nothing close to love, but a curiosity, an interest. 

With the promise of their nightly coupling, an awaiting asset. 

_i don’t know what to do, you don’t know what to say_

Jinyoung is at Jaebeom’s side when the physicians come. 

It’s a private affair - certainly, he made sure of that. But Jinyoung allows himself an exception because it’s been months filled with what was basically, urgent breeding, and he’s _sure_ of it. 

He needs to be the one to know, and he needs to confirm his own confidences. 

Jaebeom looks up at him in soft confusion, sprawled across the bed at midday with three stony-faced physicians clad in all-white between his bare legs. Jinyoung idly gives his hand a patient squeeze, a silent _stay._ The situation must be completely alien to him, but Jinyoung is focused on the head physician, giving her a silent nod as their eyes meet. 

“It’ll be quick,” he murmurs, waiting with his gaze held straight ahead. “Just a health checkup.” 

The confusion flushes into embarrassment soon enough as blunt fingers begin to probe at his entrance. It’s nothing like what Jinyoung does to him, but even a sterile examination makes him squeeze his eyes shut, and Jinyoung glances down to see his mouth twist, caught between a foreign discomfort and a familiar pleasure. 

Biting his lip, as if he might cry out in that same mute hoarseness reserved for midnight hours only. 

Jinyoung placates him with a soothing sweep of his thumb, and Jaebeom immediately hides his face against the backs of their locked knuckles. 

When he looks up again, it’s to obvious surprise on the head physician’s usual placid expression. He had been frank with them about what they should expect, but well, anyone would be more than a little shocked by the natural slickness between the second prince’s legs. 

With only a few more beats of silence muffled by Jaebeom’s wriggling across the sheets and the slip of wet fingers inside him, the tentative pre-examination is finished. 

The physicians straighten, carefully unfurling their sleeves over their hands as they line up, one by one, like a string of white chess pieces. And Jinyoung knows he should wait, should stay behind and look Jaebeom in the eye, try to communicate in that fleeting, elusive way of his to make sure he’s alright.

The last woman turns, holding his gaze with purposeful intention, and Jinyoung rips his hand free from Jaebeom’s tight grip to follow. 

He hears something at his back, a whine or a rustle of the sheets, but he doesn’t stop to look. 

After all, there will be plenty of time for that after he secures news of an heir. 

-

“Your Highness.” For the first time in his life as a prince of Solare’s pristine marble kingdom, the head physician hesitates in her deliberation. 

She sharpens quick enough because it’s never been tradition to coddle the children of the crown. 

“There are no signs of successful insemination.” She bows her covered head dutifully. “Please accept our most sincere apologies.”

The other two follow, stilted and ever professional, but Jinyoung is already dismissing them for his own halting thoughts.

He leans against the banister, trying to pause everything for the moment, and there’s the curtained view of the garden before him, and he has to move - 

He doesn’t know where he’s going, why his feet are tripping so urgently over themselves, but he can’t stand the sight of the ripened peony tree, where it’s pink petals are always showering the well-worn spot beneath it. 

He can’t, _can’t_ go back to his room. 

So eventually when he huddles against the crooked frame of a dusty window that’s too small for him, he takes solace in the familiarity of it. Even in his panic, his body had remembered - the tall spire to the leftmost of the castle, filled with the faded words of forgotten archives. 

No one but Jinyoung really visits this place anymore. It’s unspoken that the libraries are practically his, but the archives are truly one of the few things he considers his own. 

After this, perhaps it may be the only thing left to his name. 

Like his lost, pathetic childhood self, he finds himself hiding here again. A habit he thought he had discarded for his father’s approval of a measly second prince.

He huffs a laugh against his bent knees.

With the odd situation at hand, he had taken it in stride, seen it for the advantage it should’ve been. 

Why he had held out hope for a strange fairytale - for his own dumb hope, he supposes.

What a fool he’s been. 

Flashes of images blurred by the edges of moonlight emerge from where he had tucked them away, hidden purposefully in his desire. Jaebeom’s pale throat, gasping beneath his palm, as if always asking Jinyoung for more -

 _Fool_ , he seems to say now, pink mouth wide and glistening around the shape of the word. From the very beginning, his eyes gaze up at Jinyoung, dark and knowing. 

-

Dinner comes, and Jinyoung goes, realizing only as he seats himself that he had forgotten to fetch Jaebeom. 

Forgotten with a sort of dazed resentment, but he doesn’t want to confront that part of himself yet. 

The maids eventually bring him in from the depths of the garden again, doing the job that Jinyoung had naturally taken upon himself so long ago. It was with great reluctance that they had found themselves trudging through ankle-high grass again, half-blind in the tinted blue darkness. 

He can feel Jaebeom’s wide eyes on him throughout the entire dinner, but he doesn’t know what kind of face he might make if he looked at him. 

So he eats, steadfastly silent, staring at the white rim of his plate until he feels his eyes glaze over in the same static color. 

By the time he’s sunk into his bed with its nest of downy blankets and stuffed cushions, there’s still that seeping numbness inside him. 

Jaebeom shuffles over moments later. Jinyoung catches a glimpse of a pale thigh as the bed dips slightly, but he can’t bring himself to look over.

Because it’s usually Jaebeom clad in his loose sleepwear, an oversized blouse with no pants, and soon enough, it’s Jinyoung tossing even that aside for the rest of the night. 

He closes his eyes resolutely and tucks his hands over his stomach. The covers tug and fall, and he can feel Jaebeom shift next to him, close enough to be on the same pillow. He doesn’t move. 

Muted colors pulse behind his lids, and for the first time, the silence at his side is so tense. He holds his breath and wonders if he could fall asleep like this. 

A tentative touch pulls at his sleeve - and he regrets it infinitely, teaching Jaebeom that he could touch him like this whenever he wanted. 

“Not tonight, Jaebeom,” he whispers. His eyes flutter but he refuses to open them. 

A pause, where Jaebeom’s hand remains at his arm and Jinyoung waits for him to let go in his self-enforced blindness. 

The night trickles by on open moonlight through the window, so slow and exhaustive time seeps by in grains down his spine. Jinyoung sighs loudly, tugging at his side.

“-Jaebeom, let go.” 

Instead of letting go, Jaebeom’s only tugs back, gripping even harder at his sleeve, and Jinyoung loses his thinly-veiled attempt at patience. 

He raises himself up sharply on his elbow, abrupt enough to dislodge Jaebeom’s fingers, and he hisses through his teeth. “Jaebeom. _Go to sleep._ ”

Immediately, he regrets letting himself look. He can see himself in Jaebeom's eyes, the wild flash of anger, the harsh curl of his mouth. It’s not him, not the second prince with the poised smile that was made to be reflected in the clear marble. 

Even worse, Jaebeom's face is frozen, his hand outstretched half to where Jinyoung used to lie. He blinks, black and glassy, and curls in on himself, hiding his mouth behind the hand that had been clinging to Jinyoung. 

But he doesn’t look away. He stares at Jinyoung’s trembling gaze with his round eyes, moonlight pooling beneath black ink, as if simply waiting, expecting. As if he could see through him and his anger into the empty grey smoke behind it. 

Jinyoung lays with his back to Jaebeom, his eyes clenched shut and the blankets wrapped up to his neck. His breath evens out, but even then he can feel with the sharpest awareness, the cold space at his back. 

When morning comes, sunshine unfurls with an orchestra of birdcalls across the crumpled blankets. Jinyoung turns blearily towards the empty nest of pillows next to him, and finally he falls asleep, curled around the dip in the bed where Jaebeom was. 

  
  


_peaches and cream, sweeter than sweet - or rather peonies and grapefruit_

The best place Jinyoung finds to ignore the world (and most importantly Jaebeom) is the library. 

He secludes himself there with his lessons, taking momentary solace only in the way the light spills through the window at noontime. He lays his head beneath it’s scattered touch for a sole minute, eyes fluttering, before jerking himself awake. 

The echoes of the garden with its bright expanse of life haunt him. 

Come dinner, then bedtime, Jinyoung settles into a rigid routine of laying on his side with his eyes shut. He listens to Jaebeom shift and toss at his side, until the silence settles like dust over them. 

In the few scant hours he sleeps, daybreak grants him a bitter reprieve because the bed is always empty by the time he wakes. 

He feels guilty, of course, in Jaebeom’s absence - but what is he to do now? He’s going to marry Jaebeom someday and then fade into the marbled walls, with nothing more than a few obscure books to his name. 

And until then, Jinyoung can only sit in the library with a creeping listlessness as he lives out his own mundane purgatory. 

The clear echo of boisterous footsteps sounds in the hall leading to the library. 

Jinyoung stares at the door with the strangest sense of deja vu. 

He’s not caught naked in the bath this time, but Jinyoung is still struck with the same flustered surprise as Jaebeom’s curious gaze ducks around the door. 

“-Ah.”

He’s forgotten how loud a voice can echo in an empty library. His own holds an odd reverberation, a reediness to it that makes it apparent how he’s been hiding among the cavernous shelves. 

Jinyoung panics. “Jaebeom, I-,” he shoots to his feet, knocking the chair against his calves, and all he knows is that he isn’t ready to confront whatever it is between them, might never be ready to, and he should just _run_ -

Before he can, Jaebeom simply hops onto the table, directly blocking Jinyoung off. 

Then, the lightest hint of sweetness parts his lips. He bites down on confused instinct, and the ripe taste of citrus and bitter seed bursts on his tongue. 

Jaebeom smiles up at him, fingers still poised over Jinyoung’s mouth. In his lap is a basket of grapefruit, cradled by a scattered nest of pink and orange peonies. Some of the fruits are half-peeled, as if Jaebeom could never decide to finish peeling one or all of them, and despite everything, Jinyoung finds it endearing. 

Another piece of grapefruit is ripped from the rind and pushed to his mouth, and Jinyoung takes it in hand this time. The juice from the split fruit makes their fingers slip, stick almost scratchily to one another. 

“Did the maids help you pick these?” He examines the basket with a tilt of his head as he idly chews the fresh grapefruit, pulpy, pink, and ripened to perfection. 

The peony blossoms are crisp, each petal still connected at the stem, not yet pulled apart by Jaebeom’s insistent fingers. 

Jaebeom only brushes a loose lock of hair behind his ear, leaving a glistening trail over his jaw. As always, Jinyoung never gets an answer, and he didn’t expect one. Somehow it feels familiar again, like their odd one-sided conversation has resumed. 

Jaebeom splits another piece from the basket and pops it into his mouth, swallowing it whole as he does so often with practically every piece of food. This time he seems to pause, lingering in the aftermath with a drag of his fingers over his lips. Tasting, sucking at every remaining bit of pulp, until his lips and fingers are stained wet.

Jinyoung is fixated. A tongue flicks out greedily, only smearing the mess of spit and pink further over swollen lips. 

“You know,” he rasps, crushing a peony within his palm. The petals fall, and Jinyoung presses a piece over Jaebeom’s lips. Beneath the smooth veins of the flower, his fingers dip into the soft give of Jaebeom’s mouth. 

“Peonies are edible.” 

Jaebeom opens up, ever so quietly, and Jinyoung’s fingers are wrapped up by the petal, molded to his knuckles by a wet, seeping heat. A hint of a bite, white teeth, and then Jaebeom is sucking, taking in two fingers to the very root.

A laden, heavy promise spills into the summer heat, blooming between them as Jinyoung’s finger trails away. A dewy pink string remains between him and the pressed peony on Jaebeom’s tongue. 

Jaebeom swallows around the petal, and his pale throat bobs audibly, up and down. 

In the end, Jinyoung breaks when Jaebeom opens his mouth, wide and messy, with his tongue begging against his lower lip. 

They’ve never done this before in the daylight. There had never been any need - after all, procreation is reserved for the sanctity of the bedroom. 

Now, Jinyoung sways on his feet as Jaebeom sinks readily to his knees. The exposed column of his throat, stretched, begging for Jinyoung’s touch. 

“Don’t-don’t bite, okay.” He hisses, fumbling with the laces of his pants blindly because he can’t take his eyes off of Jaebeom. The soft obedience of his lidded stare as he sits there, waiting with his slick, parted lips. 

“Oh my _god_ -” 

Jinyoung discovers that Jaebeom has no gag reflex. 

Jaebeom takes him in with only a flutter of his eyelashes, a wet gurgle as Jinyoung’s cock hits the back of his throat. It’s so deep and tight, and Jaebeom closes his eyes, sucking as if he was going to swallow Jinyoung down whole. 

Clutching at the window ledge, Jinyoung thinks he sees flashes of white in the curved dome ceiling above. 

When he comes, he has to shut his eyes at the intensity of it, tugging at a handful of Jaebeom's black locks to hold onto _something_. And he can’t help but wonder if Jaebeom likes it, with the way his throat spasms, silent vibrations making his softening cock twitch again in shock. 

Jinyoung slides to the floor almost immediately. With his legs lodged haphazardly between Jaebeom’s, he can see how thoroughly fucked-out the other prince looks from just a blowjob. 

Strings of hair plastered to his cheeks, the thick traces of Jinyoung’s release lining the seam of his lips. His body sways with quiet exhaustion, eyes unfocused, and still he sits there, as if waiting for Jinyoung’s approval. 

When Jinyoung cups his sticky jaw, Jaebeom’s mouth falls open. 

Jinyoung tilts his chin up, smearing his fingers over the edge of Jaebeom’s lips. They stretch with his touch, obscenely pink and slick. “You swallowed,” he says, a low whisper that feels like an incredulous prayer and a selfish revelation at the same time. 

Jaebeom surges forward, and Jinyoung tastes the salty remains of his own come mixed with a fragrant sweetness. It’s a kiss as messy as their first, but Jinyoung has a feeling Jaebeom wants it that way, for it to linger and stick between them long after they part. Bitterly sweet, Jinyoung can still taste the tang of ripened grapefruit.

Jaebeom pulls away, his tongue still peeking out between his lips, and he nudges his hips against Jinyoung’s leg with a slight frown. 

Jinyoung immediately hauls him into his lap, intending to return the favor - but Jaebeom is already soft against his palm, wet and dragging his soiled pants over Jinyoung’s thigh. 

And Jinyoung, Jinyoung is incredulous, at Jaebeom, this odd creature seated and shivering in his lap, asking him for something more with those dark, innocent eyes. 

“You’re…” Jinyoung gingerly fits his stained hands around Jaebeom’s waist, searching for the right word. 

He settles on, “Good.” He looks up at Jaebeom’s flushed stare and tentatively repeats himself. “You were good. So good, Jaebeom.” He soothes a hand over Jaebeom’s hip so that Jaebeom can feel his words, how much he means them towards someone that will never respond in the same way. 

Jaebeom smiles, a dazzling post-glow in the afternoon sunshine, and he bounces lightly in his hold.

In bed that night Jaebeom’s legs fall open for him again, and Jinyoung kneels in that familiar space, the heat and the wetness spilling over his fingers coated in silk moonlight. 

Jaebeom’s body gives willingly around him, for him, as if they had never stopped. And Jinyoung, with his hands on either side of him - he begins to plan, eyes fixed solely on Jaebeom. 

His dark hair threaded with silver moonlight, bliss fluttering over his face, his flat stomach arching up to meet Jinyoung’s palm.

In his inscrutable muteness, Jinyoung knows there’s still more to be said, and he’s going to make Jaebeom give it up to him. 

_i am reminded of childhood fabrications - or fairy tales for the masses_

Jinyoung seeks out Yugyeom as he remembered last, frolicking in the open pastures.

Having been relieved of his palace duty, the boy is infinitely more suited to the company of half-broken mares, their pelts glossy with golden sun and grass as they toss about like blurs of color in the wind. 

Yugyeom arrives at his summon on unsteady limbs. He bows in a way reminiscent of a child still growing into a new, gangly body, and Jinyoung observes the gleaming bouquet of wheat grains and straw stuck in his tawny hair. 

“Your Highness,” Yugyeom begins before ducking his gaze down again. 

He fidgets in place, eyes flickering back to the open fields he was torn from. It seems proper etiquette has long been forgotten, and Jinyoung thinks of the silent boldness with which Jaebeom romps through the gardens, making a mess of himself every day. 

He nods, dipping his head courteously. “I hope that life here is treating you well. Solare is not too much of an adjustment is it?” 

“No, not at all,” Yugyeom practically mumbles. For someone of his height, he’s oddly timid. 

“I’m glad then.” Jinyoung begins to walk, leading Yugyeom to fall into step just behind him. He lets the silence blend into the rustle of wild grass underfoot, lets the wind draw out the conversation just a bit longer between them.

Then, pause. “It’s certainly been an experience having Jaebeom here.” He laughs, closing his eyes as if he were alone. “Excitable enough that even the maids can’t keep up.” 

He turns to Yugyeom, who’s been silent all this time, with a perfect lightness that indicates nothing but an affectionate curiosity for his betrothed. “Surely, he was just as much of a troublemaker in Lunaris for the rest of you as well?” 

“I, I’m not sure I remember, Your Highness. I was only serving in the kitchens then.” Yugyeom doesn’t look him in the eye, and yet, Jinyoung reads him with one easy glance. 

Jinyoung hums and resumes his walk. “That’s a shame then.” 

He lets the lilt of his words simmer, stretch into the boiling summer heat between them. With a few more steps, he waits for Yugyeom to give. 

And he does, with one crackling pause on the edge of the fields. 

“Your Highness, I-”

Jinyoung cuts him off with a precise edge to his smile. “Call me Jinyoung.” 

Yugyeom flounders, halting in place. “Your - Prince Jinyoung, I don’t mean to presume, but-”

“Please,” Jinyoung smiles. “There’s no need for all that.” 

Yugyeom stare shifts rapidly again, looking at the touch of pasture right beyond Jinyoung’s shoulder before jumping back to either side of his polished shoes. He’s so flighty and yet there’s something stubborn stuck to the way he clenches his jaw with trembling lips. 

“Then, please forgive me for being so bold, but you-you won’t get rid of our prince just because he didn’t conceive, right?”

 _Oh -_ Jinyoung doesn’t even have to feign surprise at that. Not that the prince _can’t_ but _didn’t_. It seems there’s more to Yugyeom than he ever expected. Even better. 

At Yugyeom’s minute tremors, he chooses to adopt amusement instead. A prince soothing his subject’s foolish, inconsequential worries. “Of course not.” He smiles wide enough for deep whiskers to curl from his eyes. “We are to marry for the sake of our kingdoms after all.”

Yugyeom seems to shrink at least a head with audible relief, but Jinyoung knows how rapidly the tide shifts, how often wars are lost and won through words alone. 

When Yugyeom falls back, he has to push just one step forward. 

“It’s odd though, isn’t it? Even for palace rumors, a prince who can bear children seems to be something closer to a fairytale.” 

Jinyoung pauses, simply watching the dappled light on green shadows overhead. “Palace rumors can get out of hand, of course.” 

He fixes Yugyeom with a stare and waits. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would you Yugyeom?” 

The errant hairs on Yugyeom’s bowed head tremble like fine gold in the wind. “If I do -” and he finally meets Jinyoung’s eyes, so earnest. So guileless. “You promise you won’t do anything to him or send him away?”

Jinyoung clicks his tongue at the very idea of it, barely hiding a terrible scoff. Sending Jaebeom away - as if. And well, they’ve already done plenty of things together, to one another. 

“On my word as second-born prince of Solare,” and he gestures with two fingers, carefree as can be, making a cross over his forehead where a crown would sit. “I would never.” 

He teases, stepping around Yugyeom with his hands in his pockets. “Really, Yugyeom just indulge my curiosity,” he finishes, practically whispering over the servant’s shoulder. 

Yugyeom now glances at him with quick, halting slips, always turning the thin plane of his jaw towards Jinyoung like some makeshift shield. But when he talks, he’s spilling out words like warm, spoiled milk in the hush of summer sun. 

If he had only looked at Jinyoung, he would have seen the flashes of interest sparking beneath the cool shade. 

“About the moon’s blessing to our people, I’m sure Your Highness-” Yugyeom hesitates, catching himself, but Jinyoung doesn’t care what he calls him. He nods for him to go on, leaning back further beneath a blooming gardenia tree. 

Yugyeom resumes, a careful breath held with every word. “It’s well known. But it’s been passed down so many times, no one really knows what the original version was anymore.” 

He quickly glances at Jinyoung before coming to some kind of resolve. “Especially concerning the second part.”

Jinyoung blinks coolly, as if part of the flickering shade himself. “The blessing of fertility.”

“Yes,” Yugyeom acquiesces softly, “In most spoken and written iterations, the first part about the goddess’s mercy is usually the same. But the second part has too many lost details.” 

As Jinyoung had read in their scant collection on Lunaris, the blessing was simply bestowed upon all the moon’s worshippers. A reward as an ultimate act of devotion. But he supposes an anonymous Solare scribe doesn’t present the most thorough version of the tale. 

“There’s more than a few versions,” Yugyeom counts quickly on his fingers despite the absolute futility of it. “-at least 50 iterations that all debate the nature of the blessing. Whether it was truly given to all, how it might even manifest - realistically speaking.” 

“The most common one says it was granted to only the royal family when the bloodline was at its end - but that might just be palace gossip,” he resolves weakly, curling his fingers around his sleeves. 

“And there is no way to confirm an earliest version.” Jinyoung pushes off the tree, eyes glittering in pale shade as he steps back into the sunlight. “Not even in your palace archives?” 

“I’ve never seen it,” Yugyeom practically snaps, even the air around him frozen for the moment. Then he shakes his head, loosely disrupting the golden grain stalks and dust from his hair. “Or at least - I was never allowed to,” he amends, mumbling lowly to himself as an afterthought. 

“Really,” Jinyoung waits at his side, looking up through tilted lashes, hands folded neatly behind his back. “And you haven’t heard anything of it. Except that it exists, of course.” 

Yugyeom breath stutters to a halt. 

Jinyoung’s footsteps crackle in the dried grass, a warning of quick brush fire as he circles around Yugyeom. He repeats himself with silk masking the edges of his words, a simple reassurance and nothing more. 

“Yugyeom, I’m simply curious. Indulge me.” 

Jinyoung comes to a halt. Yugyeom’s exhale rattles his tall, thin body. 

He waits, and Yugyeom talks. 

“I really don’t know anything about it, if it’s even the earliest,” Yugyeom is rushing now, tripping over himself as his gaze begins to flutter erratically. Jinyoung can see how close he is to bolting, but he knows when to push - and Yugyeom just needs to go one step further. 

“Rumors, even.” His hand finds the tense curve of the servant’s shoulder. Stays, squeezes a second later. “Anything will do.” 

Yugyeom babbles, “I don’t know where it came from, but they say - they say that the goddess’s gift was never supposed to be simple, that it required a ritual or - a sacrifice on her behalf.” 

Then, his eyes snap wide open as if suddenly aware of where he is, of everything he said, and he begins to tremble. Jinyoung calmly slips his hand back to his side. 

“All of that is just what it is - palace gossip. Rumors, I wouldn’t - I don’t even know if there’s truth to any of it,” Yugyeom pleads fervently, the rims of his eyes burning red beneath the wearing afternoon sun. With every word, he seems to shake his head wildly, denying everything to himself and Jinyoung. 

Jinyoung steps away, leaving a perfunctory distance between them. Despite Yugyeom’s protests, he’s gotten everything he needed. 

“Of course,” he nods at the servant, a charming smile worn over his face like a prince once more. “Just a talk between you and me.” 

Yugyeom sways in place, almost ashen in the white glare of afternoon sunshine. Jinyoung inclines his head once more, and he watches with a flat gaze as Yugyeom stumbles away with a deep bow. There’s no need for any more pretenses after that. 

As Jinyoung strolls back from the stables, he wonders what kind of excuse he needs to come up with and how quickly for his father to arrange an impromptu summer visit to their sister kingdom. 

_inferiority complex in a passing interest_

As it turns out, a passing mention of Jinyoung’s desire to visit his betrothed’s home is enough of a reasonable excuse. 

“It couldn’t be helped, you were off at the summer villa during the treaty,” Father hums thoughtfully. “I suppose a visit this soon to cement our relations wouldn’t hurt.” 

Mark glares at him over his soup, and Jinyoung can’t stop the corner of his lip from twitching. 

“It would give Jaebeom a chance to see home as well,” Jinyoung interjects smoothly, reaching for Jaebeom’s hand beneath the table. Jaebeom doesn’t stop eating, but he lets Jinyoung’s fingers slip between his, curl warmly against his thigh. 

“Then it’ll be a wonderful occasion for the two of you.” Father smiles benevolently, leaning forward slightly to address Jaebeom. As always, he glances between them, and Jinyoung knows, they’re thinking the same thing under a cordial mask. 

Jaebeom blinks at the king’s scrutiny with that wide-eyed awareness that never seems to give away anything. 

To Jinyoung, he’s never fazed, not by Father or Jinyoung himself. Or he’s simply more preoccupied with his food, Jinyoung admits as Jaebeom turns back to wide mouthfuls of bread and soup. 

Well, the trip is set - he hums lightly under his breath as he squeezes Jaebeom’s fingers once more. When he lets go, Jaebeom’s hand lingers for just a moment on his wrist. 

He glances quickly at the touch, but Jaebeom is eating again, unsuspecting and completely guileless. 

-

Jinyoung clutches at the last pieces of his luggage, the few books he decided on to pass the journey through the tall wood separating the sun from the moon. 

He pauses on the step of an open walkway. Through the columns he can see Jaebeom’s dark head in a sea of sunshine and green. 

He still has to finish packing, and he doubts Jaebeom even has an idea of where to start, but on a whim he steps down the patio, crossing the edge where marble fades into grass to join his betrothed. 

His shadow falls over Jaebeom’s face as his footsteps still with a murmured hush. The other prince looks up at him slowly, lazily, with two uneven blinks. His hand raises, barely brushing over Jinyoung’s leg, almost a greeting.

Jinyoung is not sure what comes over him, not when he’s already delayed his packing to loom over Jaebeom in the summer grass. 

It seems that same idle feeling drives him to lower himself to the ground and cage Jaebeom in with his arms on either side of his head.

He can feel his bare palms sink into the dirt, his pants wrinkling over his bent knees, but Jinyoung doesn’t move. He’s practically on top of Jaebeom now, their shirts brushing in the wind. 

Jaebeom almost goes cross-eyed with how close Jinyoung’s face is. Still, he doesn’t move, only keeping his head half-raised as something close to a coo sounds from the base of his throat. 

Jinyoung watches as Jaebeom seems to relax, stretching languidly against the grass. His broad neck with its strong and soft curves is bared as always from his loosened collar. His eyes rove over his collarbones, the small freckle dotting just below the right, and he realizes with a strange sensation - it’s simple interest. 

Not just curiosity or convenience, but interest in the way he wants to see Jaebeom wear the marks of his mouth in broad daylight simply because he never has before. 

Jinyoung is a pragmatic partner, and even in the heat of the moment, it had never seemed necessary. It was his cock in Jaebeom’s tight, wet hole, and that was already more than he could ever imagine. 

Now he has another shameless thought. Perhaps, he should stake his claim right here and now. 

Jaebeom makes another throaty sound, something so close to a whine, when Jinyoung presses his lips to the curve of his shoulder. He works his way up in a trail of light teeth and hard, sucking kisses, until he’s laving his tongue over the last blooming hickey.

Jaebeom turns his neck and lets him continue with a shiver. 

Jinyoung’s handiwork is red and painfully apparent on Jaebeom’s milk-soft skin. He can’t stop looking at the marks, the way they flush, just slightly swollen in the pale sunlight. He knows, anyone with eyes would be able to guess where each one came from.

And Jaebeom never properly buttons up his borrowed shirts. 

Mark’s cold, acrid voice interrupts the almost drowsy haze pulsing through him.

“Hey - stop necking in public, dumbass. Who are you even putting on a show for? It’s embarrassing.” 

Jinyoung feigns nonchalance as he rolls off Jaebeom, simply closing his eyes and reclining against his palms. In truth, he’s a little embarrassed himself at what, at being caught? Having someone, especially his _brother_ , watch him mouth at Jaebeom like a mindless fool. 

Well, it’s within his rights, he thinks with a frown. They are to be wed after all. 

He feels the slow, careful way Jaebeom shifts against him. A clumsy press of his palm over half of Jinyoung’s fingers, but it makes him blink open one eye. 

Mark is still towering over the both of them, his arms crossed over his chest. With his back to the sun, there’s that perpetual shade blurring his face, but Jinyoung doesn’t like what he finds in his gaze. 

Specifically, a gaze trained on Jaebeom. With his usual high-brow glare, he’s tilting to examine the bruises on Jaebeom’s neck. Curious, considering. 

And Jinyoung has never seen that look on his brother’s rigid face, and even more, he doesn’t like it at all. 

“What, don’t tell me,” he scoffs as harshly as possible in an attempt to snap Mark out of whatever strange funk he’s in. “Are you jealous, brother?” 

That does it. Mark spins in place, throwing him one last look of clear disgust before stomping back through the soft grass. 

Still, Jinyoung sees the way he lingers on Jaebeom, and he knows this isn’t the last of it. 

Jaebeom nudges against his shoulder, and he turns only for their noses to bump awkwardly. He startles, and the other prince shakes a little, his eyes turning into half-moons as if in laughter. He gazes at Jinyoung, soft, questioning. 

Jinyoung only shakes his head. He settles his hand on Jaebeom’s neck, stroking over the largest hickey with his thumb. 

It’s faded slightly, but the edges are rough, indicating the shadow of a bruise for tomorrow. Jinyoung feels it pulse fever-hot beneath his touch. 

_-_

Of all the times for Jaebeom to act out in his naive shamelessness, now is probably the worst, Jinyoung thinks, taking a random turn down another identical marble hallway.

He had explicitly told Jaebeom in words, in careful spoken words as he had looked him in the eye. 

(“Tomorrow, you and I are going on a trip to visit your kingdom. You have to stay in sight so I can find you when we have to leave.” 

Jaebeom barely opens his eyes, only inching forward on the pillow towards the source of the sound.

“Jaebeom, come on-” Jinyoung urges, gripping Jaebeom’s curled fingers and pressing a frustrated kiss over the knuckle. “You have to listen to me.” 

Jaebeom stirs with a flutter of lashes, and he reaches out, brushing just barely over Jinyoung’s parted lips. 

Jinyoung huffs, and adamantly holds him in place before anything else can transpire. They’ve already gone once, leaving them both bare and sweaty with a familiar feeling of sleepy exhaustion. 

“No wandering around in the gardens.” He tugs Jaebeom to him, until it’s wide, surprised eyes meeting his own. 

“Do you understand?” It comes out stilted with hard emphasis on every word, but he needs it to be clear for once between them. 

Jaebeom blinks twice, and maybe Jinyoung starts to regret his harsh tone, the rigid seriousness he never uses with Jaebeom - 

But Jaebeom finally nods. Only once, distinct and direct in an honest-to-god answer.

Jinyoung has never gotten a reply so clear from Jaebeom. Even though it’s what he wanted, he finds himself replaying every detail of it long into the night. As if to make sure that Jaebeom truly answered him).

Now, he feels like he’s been played somehow. 

Just because Jaebeom's usual replies consist of silence, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the capability of purposefully lying to Jinyoung. 

In fact, Jinyoung thinks with a strange surge of bitterness, it might be easiest for him - given his specific condition. 

He’s still striding briskly through the hallways, scanning across the expanse of thickets below him to try and even catch a glimpse of Jaebeom. 

It’s practically impossible given how long it usually takes him to find the other prince through simple wandering. With the tall willow trees overlapping their shadows over the ground, there are an infinite number of tiny nooks perfect for napping that Jinyoung is missing in his cursory glance. 

He pushes on anyway, making a quick loop around the whole floor in his haste. Nothing. 

Just as he considers taking another frustrated, futile lap just to make sure, something catches at the edge of his eye from above. 

He squints, craning out over the banister - and it’s far up, but that’s Jaebeom for sure. He can see the long dark hair, worn loose in the way that only he would dare. 

There’s someone else looming in front of him, tall and skinny, and Jinyoung doesn’t waste any more time trying to figure it out. 

By the time he sprints up to the alcove, he’s panting in a distinctly un-princely manner. But he was right: there’s Jaebeom, backed against the railing with his brother clutching at his raised arm. 

Jinyoung doesn’t think, only strides forward, seething in breathless anger. 

“What are you doing to him-” he hisses, yanking Jaebeom’s arm out of Mark’s grip and forcing himself bodily between them. 

Jaebeom automatically steps behind him, and Jinyoung knows his grip is tight to the point of bruising, but the image of Mark’s long fingers around Jaebeom’s wrist is seared into his eyes. He just can’t let go at the moment. 

Mark’s eyes flicker intensely, as if he might step forward, edge the both of them against the balcony, but then he halts, stumbling hesitantly. He frowns at some scuffing on the floor, even as Jinyoung continues to glare at him without pause. 

He glances up. “Nothing, I was-” he rubs at the back of his neck. “I was just curious,” he finishes, mumbling, almost sounding confused. 

Curious? Jinyoung wants to laugh in his face. Curious about how Jaebeom might spread his legs for him instead, how he’ll spill over, wet in the place that should differentiate a man from a woman? How he might be the one to make him swell with a child? 

Unconsciously, he tightens his fingers around Jaebeom’s arm. Mark is firstborn and he has the throne for a seat and the crown to warm his brow, but he can’t have _this._ There’s no way Jinyoung will let him have Jaebeom too. 

“Don’t be.” He steps away brusquely, pulling Jaebeom none too gently with him. “He’s not yours.” 

And he thinks that’s the last of it, the last time he’s going to look at Mark and reminisce about a childhood as brothers because he’s walking away with Jaebeom in tow to find the answers to his own future.

But Mark never, never lets him have the last word. 

That quiet, steady voice makes him pause one last time. 

“I don’t think he’s yours to keep either.”

And somehow that makes him see red, infinitely more angry than catching Mark physically crowding Jaebeom against the balcony. Because it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to get the last word in out of spite, a meaningless thing simply meant to hurt. 

Jinyoung knows spite very well, and he wears it as well as his pressed white shirts. 

This tone, it’s as if Mark is _worried_. As if Jinyoung mattered enough to him to give him unsolicited, brotherly advice for the sake of it. _He has no right._

Jinyoung forces his feet to move across polished marble. He doesn’t look back to see whether Mark is still there, whether he’s looking at him with mocking laughter, or worse, some semblance of care. 

Jaebeom follows at his side the entire time. Silent of course, and for once, Jinyoung is grateful for the absolute lack of communication between them. 

Once they’ve loaded up the coaches and are rolling past bumpy golden fields - he realizes, he’s still got an iron grip on Jaebeom’s arm. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he quickly whispers, shaken at his own unawareness. He lets go, his palm burning, but the damage is done. 

Like a brand, Jaebeom’s soft flesh wears an imprint in the clear shape of his hand. 

He cradles Jaebeom’s arm again, this time like silk between his palms, trying to soothe away the hot flush with light, circling strokes. It must have hurt the entire time, but as it is, Jaebeom stays silent. 

Without thinking, Jinyoung scolds him out loud. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Jaebeom’s lidded expression is one of pure exasperation. 

“Sorry-” Jinyoung apologizes again for some reason and he’s so frustrated over the remaining echoes of Mark’s voice, over the bruise that’s surely going to marr Jaebeom’s pretty skin-

Jaebeom’s hand falls firmly over his. Jinyoung blinks as he brushes a kiss over his cheek that stops right at the edge of his mouth. 

_It’s okay._

Maybe Jinyoung is really at his limit now because he thinks he can hear it in Jaebeom’s voice, whatever ethereal, intangible sound that might be. 

He pictures it as the moon reflected in a pool at night, just the lightest touch that causes a ripple of light to ring out louder than ocean waves crashing into a storm. 

Jaebeom’s arm remains caught between his fingers, but this time it’s Jaebeom’s hand over his that soothes him. It keeps him gentle, and for that, Jinyoung shakes a little, closing his eyes as he falls against Jaebeom’s shoulder on the long ride to a land of shade and silver. 

His brother’s words haunt him, and even in his sleep, he can’t make himself acknowledge what they mean.

_admit it, would you have kept my love if you had known otherwise?_

The queen regnant of Lunaris looks upon her son in the oddest manner. 

It’s not the usual disdainful glances Jaebeom gets for his way of dress or his daily romp through the gardens. General impropriety that Jinyoung finds amusing the more it unsettles Solare’s straight-laced court. 

No, it’s more than that. Her silver, glass eyes are blank, kept so carefully empty. 

When she had caught sight of them upon their arrival, Jinyoung could swear they flickered, the waters shifting with a shadow beneath a grey pond. It’s not the conflicted expression of a mother distanced from her son’s well being.

Instead it’s cold, as if Jaebeom was never welcome back in the first place. Like Jaebeom was never hers to begin with. 

Jaebeom’s reaction only makes him ponder the question, ever stranger. Upon their entrance to the throne, he steps behind Jinyoung, their legs brushing, his fingers grazing over the back of Jinyoung’s wrist.

His usual wide-eyed stare is averted to some point beyond Jinyoung’s shoulder instead. 

Still, Jinyoung meets his future mother-in-law’s eyes with nothing but bold curiosity. 

She is a pure reflection of the frigid cobblestone of her castle walls, and Jinyoung wonders how he can approach such a wall when Solare has been nothing but cool marble with the lightest of shadows passing under sunlight.

He takes Jaebeom in hand and begins to plan. 

-

Jinyoung knows he wasn’t there when the treaty was brokered, how the court reacted when their precious second prince was passed from one kingdom to another, but there is no doubt now - he’s the one who holds Jaebeom in the palm of his hands.

He wouldn’t do anything, of course, he thinks with a hint of mirth as he plays with Jaebeom’s fingers beneath the tablecloth. But surely his in-laws don’t need to know that. 

Dinner is a courteous affair. Father sits with the queen regnant at the head of the table, and they make small talk for the sake of their people. From his seat in the middle of the dinner course, right in front of a stuffed swan, Jinyoung can practically feel her displeasure radiate from the base of his own spine. 

For his part, he exchanges tight-lipped smiles and neat, menial conversation with every royal advisor, duke, duchess, and sibling. Jaebeom blinks at the change in scenery, and seemingly resolves to pick at his food for most of dinner. 

Jinyoung carefully keeps the queen’s expression in mind, the moment it had changed like dark waters parting for the tide. 

He wants to see it shift again and spill over completely. 

He takes his chance at the next lull, when the hall is filled with only the echoes of stone. 

“I thank Your Majesty for her great hospitality.” He stands and bows, carefully lining up his next few words at the tip of his tongue. 

She inclines her head, barely. 

Jinyoung rises pleasantly and sits again, this time letting his hand fall over Jaebeom’s thigh. “Your Majesty should know life at Solare has become particularly vibrant with Prince Jaebeom there - I think it’s the first time the maids have come so close to reaching their wit's end.” 

He chuckles and with an eye sweeping over the entire table, he raises Jaebeom’s hand to his lips in a light show of affection. 

Silver eyes sharpen, a cut breath on the edge of a dagger, and he knows, she sees the way Jaebeom easily brushes his fingers in return over his lips. 

Jinyoung is determined to push farther. 

“Surely you have a few amusing tales of his youth in Lunaris as well,” he watches her face twitch as he slides closer, fingers barely tracing the outline of Jaebeom’s hip. 

Jaebeom hums low in his throat, a ticklish little sound. Father’s face seems to be set in a look of careful calculation. 

The queen stares at them openly now, and Jinyoung sees the dark waters shifting, revealing in her eyes. 

Jinyoung continues smoothly. “After all,” he firmly tucks his arm around Jaebeom’s waist, playing with the loose cotton shirt as his mouth brushes a whisper over Jaebeom’s ear, “it’s not like this one to talk about himself at all.” 

It’s Jaebeom’s open laugh that does it - a throaty sound as he wriggles unabashedly in Jinyoung’s hold with a wide, cheeky smile. 

The queen sweeps away in a blazing trail of grey, blue silk, and her silence seems to shake the very stone foundation of the walls. 

Jinyoung hides his grin in a quick kiss against Jaebeom’s flushed ear and rushes to follow. 

-

If Solare is a perfect labyrinth of polished marble that seems all the more confusing when filled with sunlight, then Lunaris is practically a death sentence in the dark. 

Night falls sooner here and in an even more imposing fashion. The hewn cobblestone slips with pure ink in every dip and fault, and Jinyoung finds himself guiding the way with a hand scraping along the wall. 

There are periodic reprieves of lamplight, but he needs to feel that there’s truly solid stone beneath him. Because it seems all too likely, as he follows the fleeting edge of silver silk, for him to take the next step into nothing at all. 

Lunaris is quite odd, he resolves. A queen who won’t look at her own son, a mute prince, and strange tales of fertility. 

For a single moment, Jinyoung feels out of his depth. 

Then, he comes upon an open chapel and he steels himself again.

The queen is a silent effigy, the intricate folds of her dress made timeless by the moonlight through the pure glass panels above. From behind, she’s hunched over as if in prayer- or perhaps in mourning, Jinyoung thinks as he steps forward. 

His own jagged silhouette shatters the infinite silence like crystals upon cold stone. 

“Why do you look at your own child that way?” 

He can’t help but let that slip first from his tongue. In half-light, half-shadow, his words take on the sound of a passing breeze, a distant owl’s cry, an echo of something inhuman. 

Her back with her shoulder blades cutting tight, broken lines into her dress is still turned to him. 

Jinyoung steps closer, until his shadow is in direct contrast to her own. 

“Can you not stand him being with another man?”

Her reply is a laugh that breaks into the trail of a dove’s cry across the castle’s high glass ceilings. “If only that was the worst of it.” 

“No,” and she finally turns, wearing wary surrender in the disgusted line of her mouth, the blazing vitriol of her eyes. “No, it’s always been something else.” 

Jinyoung settles back into the shadow and waits with the darkness cutting a veil over his face. 

She begins to walk. Slow, away from him, and yet with intention as she spills everything from memory. 

”He was like any other child, growing up. Bright, playful, maybe a little wild at times- but nothing unexpected of a princeling.” As she nears the glass mosaic of the open window above, she stops, raising her face to the distorted shards of light.

“The problem was with the moon.” Indeed, the moon seems to turn the colors darker, stranger upon her skin. “As a baby, he would become restless if the moonlight ever reached his crib, so we kept him in darkness until he learned to walk.” 

Jinyoung hasn’t ever noticed their shared sleep being disrupted by the moon - in fact, with Jaebeom spending all his time basking in the palace gardens, it always seemed like he had a greater affinity for the sun. Nevertheless, he holds his tongue.

“The changes started when he was 12. It was only light dozing during his lessons at first, but at some point he barely had enough energy to open a book. I,” she hesitates, an odd vulnerability affecting her measured voice, “we were worried the same issue in his infancy was starting again.” 

“Servants were stationed outside his doors, and the windows were latched shut, but again and again, he was growing more tired, weaker during the day, and I - I wondered if he was even sleeping at all.” And he sees it, just a hint of the mother Jinyoung thinks once loved her son dearly, clutching at her necklace like a prayer to her chest. 

She pauses, looking up through the open window again. Her face flickers, reaching far away as if hearing something beyond the heavy stone. Then she begins again. This time, lower, with a rasp of breath. 

“There was a disturbance in the garden at night. The guards had heard the bells ringing from the dove’s cages, and when they went to find the intruder, it was -”

Her shoulders shudder with her exhale, but she continues to stare resolutely above her. Only now does Jinyoung notice. The glass window holds the moon perfectly in its circular frame. 

“-it was Jaebeom. They found him standing barefoot in the pond with a dove in his hands.” 

Jinyoung sways at the image. The stones at his feet grow uneven where they meet. 

Her eyes are glazing over, sharp silver washed away on a white shore of pure nothing. “It was everywhere, you know - his hands, his mouth.” She speaks, hushed, as if admitting to something more beautiful, more terrible than could ever be conceived.

Then, she startles out of it. Her words are now blunt stones, thrown out harshly if only to be done with them forever. 

“I learned later that he must have been out there the entire night, doing nothing but staring up at the moon. After that - well, you’ve seen what he’s like: mute and spending all his time frolicking in gardens.” 

“You must understand,” she glances wearily at Jinyoung as if finally remembering his presence, “I don’t hate him, but the person you’ve been promised is not my son.”

The moonlight cascades down the stone-walls, washing over her cheeks, just as pale as Jaebeom’s, and her eyes close with a flutter, as if finally absolving herself of a deep guilt. 

“The goddess already took that part from me.” An absolution, a prayer made after the fact. 

The sound of faraway voices fill the echoing stone structures, and it seems to break the odd trance between them. Jinyoung steps forward. The moon in her grace soaks through him as well, catching and amplifying the glimmering interest in his eyes. 

“I think I may be able to understand why.” His smile is dazzling, a perfect blessing of pearls, and it’s like the goddess herself has shed her tears to line the curve of his cheeks. “Would Your Majesty show me the way to the royal archives?” 

-

In the depths of stone untouched by sun, Jinyoung lets secrets spill out over his lap, like dark blood, like the single thread of moonlight through the barred window. 

Beyond the multitudes of revisions upon revisions, there is a single scroll that crumbles at his touch. 

It reads simply: 

_upon her full reflection,_

_a prayer of life for blood and essence_

_shall a blessing be granted only then._

Following, are crude scratches in black charcoal. Even so, the violent black lines make it clear enough. 

A dagger followed by the doll-like shape of a man. 

Kneeling upon the gnarled stone, Jinyoung feels his legs give out anyway. He flops onto his side, thumping back into the ancient shelves, and listens to his own breathing ring out into the silence. 

The moon is swollen full tonight. It’s very late. Jinyoung has no idea if Jaebeom has gone to bed already. 

He also has no idea what to do with this ‘spell,’ this _curse_ blackening his heart, drowning deep inside him.

It’s altogether too heavy, so he lays there, with his body cooling against the dusty stones, and wonders if what he learned might just leak out of his ears and back into that godforsaken piece of paper lying right before him.

In his numbed state, the lone set of footsteps does not strike alarm until it’s too late. 

Deep in the buried archives, where the only way in is guided by a certain angle of the moon at its height, Jaebeom finds Jinyoung curled tightly around a stack of papers and books. 

By the time Jinyoung forces himself upright, tossing away the mess piled over him, Jaebeom is at the door. 

He doesn’t cross the threshold, past the uneven stairs and forgotten years of history and myths alike. Instead, he looks at Jinyoung with something apprehensive and unrecognizable. 

Jinyoung stumbles towards the stairs, delicate parchment fluttering away and so desperately forgotten. “Jaebeom, I-”

Jaebeom holds out a hand at the top of the stairs, waiting, pleading in a shadow he can’t seem to cross.

The heavy poison in Jinyoung’s mouth goes dry, and when he finally grabs onto Jaebeom’s hand, it feels like he might still fall, like he might be cut on the edges of the marred stone and bleed everything out into this cavern of dark, unspoken, unseen secrets. 

Then, Jaebeom pulls, and he’s guided out of that terrible, shaking place by a grip that feels like it might never let go. 

Beneath the same moonlit path, Jaebeom makes sure Jinyoung follows him out of that aching cavern, where his heart had beat against his chest - a dark tattoo. 

Jinyoung is still shivering when Jaebeom seats him on the edge of a bed. Then, he’s blinded as the windows are thrown wide open.

It must have been Jaebeom’s childhood bedroom, he realizes, recalling his conversation with the queen. 

The darkness that was supposed to keep him swaddled, safe. Now, he watches Jaebeom lean against the awning, stretching out to meet the moon with the curve of his cheek. Breathing it in as he would with air, sun, and sky. 

Jinyoung can feel himself settling a little as the soft light spills out across his thighs, as familiar a sight as home. He tries to close his eyes as he flops back onto the bed.

The same familiar weight clambers over him, and Jinyoung rises, an arm tensed against Jaebeom’s chest. 

“I can’t...I just can’t, tonight Jaebeom -” 

Jaebeom presses a finger insistently against his lips and proceeds to strip Jinyoung of his ruffled shirt with quick, practiced movements.

Jinyoung should be indignant, but Jaebeom only fixes him with a look so fierce that he feels reprimanded by silence alone. 

By the time Jinyoung is divested of his pants, Jaebeom quickly tugs off his own trousers to match. Everything is pushed to the floor without a second thought. 

Then, like a strange puzzle, Jaebeom curls over him, around him, and they fall back onto the covers together. 

When he looks down, the other prince’s eyes are resolutely pinched shut. With his arms locked around Jinyoung’s neck, seated firmly over Jinyoung’s lap, he supposes this is Jaebeom’s way of telling him to go to sleep. 

So he gingerly wraps his shivering arms around Jaebeom’s waist and closes his eyes. 

Sleep comes, not easily, but it does come with Jaebeom pressed against his chest, breathing in time to his heartbeat. 

(In his dreams, he supposes that’s what they are now, he dreams in voices and snippets of questions.

One echo reverberates over and over again. 

_the person you’ve been promised is not my son_. 

Who would it have been, then? Would his betrothed have been just as bright, playful, and willfully wild as his mother described? Would Jinyoung have spent his time sharing lessons and whispered conversations with a person who could match his wit and snark, word for word? 

Would he have been satisfied with marrying someone who might choose to stay at his side and understand his ambitions as a second-born prince? 

Would he have been satisfied with more than who Jaebeom is now? 

Each one of these thoughts is as effervescent and meaningless as the veins of butterfly wings, and they all flicker with promises of brilliant sunshine, hints of real laughter). 

Come morning, his arms are still firmly wrapped around Jaebeom, 

When the other prince rouses, pouting in his tight hold, Jinyoung sweeps his hair back to blindly kiss his forehead and pulls him in for a moment more of silent dozing. 

-

Jinyoung rides groggily at Father’s side, thinking of nothing more than how the sunshine is soaking into his swollen face this morning. 

“Jinyoung.” 

He blinks himself into some state of propriety. “Yes, Father?” 

His father’s inquiring smile complements the new day nicely. “Did you find what you needed?”

The slow warmth in his bones seeps into deep exhaustion. He hesitates at the dark pulse in his chest. 

“No,” he finally decides, biting on his own tongue as he clenches the reins in his palms. “No I didn’t.” 

“Well-,” Father’s voice is surprisingly light at his answer. “I trust you’ll still find what you need somewhere else.”

Jinyoung glances back up and Father’s smile is still directed at him, steady in the morning sun.

He forces those intangible questions, forbidden impulses back into himself again and the strange cavity of his chest beats incomprehensibly in response.

He has no idea if he will, but he answers anyway. 

“Yes, surely.” 

_i’m really, really lonely, hold me, please hold me_

It really was not Jinyoung’s intention to become so distant in the aftermath of their trip, but simply, everything seemed to convalesce at once. 

The annual assembly for the heirs of each kingdom is to be held in Solare this year, in one of their villas that glisten like a white oasis in the summer heat. Begrudgingly, Jinyoung is tasked with planning it even though there is no need for him to ever attend. 

How could he refuse, when Father had personally called upon him. 

Simply, “Jinyoung I trust you will know what to do,” and Jinyoung could only let his heart start falsely at the top of his throat. 

There’s that looming over the horizon in the same month. 

And then there’s Jaebeom’s wardrobe fitting. 

In truth, it’s long overdue, but under Jinyoung’s tolerance it had been allowed. Still, months of running around in loose hand-me-downs that could practically function as sleepwear is taking its toll on the court. Solare favors its clean marble halls and sharp princes cut from fitted cloth and sleek, shorn hair. 

Jaebeom in half-buttoned blouses and tangled black curls as he crouches beneath swaying leaves is certainly not that. 

Jinyoung is, of course, Jaebeom’s keeper, and because Father favors his image, the order for a tailor is sent out. 

While Jinyoung has entertained thoughts of Jaebeom dressed in finery, for his clothes to finally fit the strong cut of his shoulders, the full slope of his legs and waist, the fitting is practically a disaster. 

Jaebeom refuses to be still, and the tailor does not have Jinyoung’s patience nor willingness to humor Jaebeom’s wordless curiosity. Instead, she meets him head-on with sharp pins and harsh hands that push and prod without warning. 

Jinyoung can see the moment Jaebeom’s amusement turns into annoyance, and he calls off the session before blood can be drawn. The maids titter at the side of the fitting room, completely useless as usual. 

It’s exhausting, he thinks as he bids the glowering tailor farewell with his usual smile. She tells him, with no small amount of snark, that they should expect to have certain adjustments made in the future because there’s no way the clothes will fit well this time around. 

Jinyoung leaves her with glowing praise, and she grumbles that she’ll do what she can with the measurements at hand. 

It’s going to be even more exhausting tomorrow, he realizes as he momentarily falls onto his bed. Jaebeom curls up against him, slightly ruffled from the previous affair. 

Tomorrow, he will sift through the letters of arriving princes and princesses and make sure each one is matched to one invitation only. Tomorrow, he remembers with a kind of fond melancholy as he twists the loose strands of Jaebeom’s hair over his nape, Jaebeom’s long locks will be shorn for classical Solare fashion. Neat and short, ending right above the brows and surely, with nothing brushing over the neck. 

Jinyoung can’t remember the last time his hair ever grew past his ears. 

He looks down at Jaebeom’s dozing face, and he can see it, how wonderfully handsome he would be with the sharp cut of his chin exposed. A prince more than anything else. 

But right now, he’s still soft and tangled in his own hair, flushed pink with sleep, and Jinyoung takes it in for a moment more. 

He presses a kiss to Jaebeom’s fluttering lids and imprints the image into his mind. 

-

It is infinitely worse than Jinyoung could have ever anticipated. From the very start to the actual hair-cutting to the aftermath, it is by definition _close_ to a disaster. 

Jinyoung does not have the time to personally oversee it himself, nor did he think it necessary. But he does take a glimpse out of the window and then commits to watching entirely as a train of maids physically chase Jaebeom in and out between weaving columns. 

In total, it takes four guards to pin him down, two maids to hold back his hair, and one royal barber who fears for the safety of his fingers in the vicinity of Prince Jaebeom’s snapping teeth. 

In the end, they still only manage a cursory job because it’s Father in passing who dismisses everyone in a moment of exasperation. A standard haircut wasn’t worth stirring up diplomatic conflicts with their newest ally. 

Jinyoung is only able to witness the aftermath after taking a brisk, lone dinner in his study.

Jaebeom sits up from the center of the bed, and Jinyoung can see from the torn nest of pillows he had been very displeased with his new look. Still - it’s quite something. 

“You’re all bare now,” he breathes, taking Jaebeom’s chin in hand. For the first time, there’s no weight brushing over his fingers a second later.

Jaebeom angles his face to meet his grip with a downturned tilt to his mouth. Jinyoung kneels over the bed, still caught in the feeling of his fingers on Jaebeom’s bare neck. 

It’s not the standard haircut - instead, it’s clearly a product of desperate, errant scissors. His bangs are a sweeping curtain of tiny, uneven strands, and tufts of baby hairs left long enough still brush over the top of his nape. 

Jaebeom tucks his cheek against his palm unhappily. 

Jinyoung can’t help but chuckle, low in his chest, as he plays with the shorter bristles of Jaebeom’s undercut. 

“You look nice,” he indulges in praise, running both hands through Jaebeom’s sleek locks. Jaebeom always preens when his hands are on his neck, covering his nape, pressing on the dip of his throat, so Jinyoung spoils him now by tugging, massaging over his scalp, rubbing the soft spot behind his ears. 

Jaebeom is pouting with a fading puffiness to his eyes, but he falls into Jinyoung’s touch, easy and appeased, and Jinyoung is forgiven for the night. 

-

The next morning ruins any kind of shared understanding between the two of them. 

Jinyoung can’t believe how early it is, and he’s already getting into a one-sided shouting match with Jaebeom, who is now stubbornly sprawled over a floor of new, clean clothes in only an old nightshirt. 

“Jaebeom - _these_ are your clothes,” Jinyoung motions with clenched teeth at the entire floor, wrinkling one of his own reclaimed blouses in hand. 

Jaebeom obstinately kicks at his new clothes, pushing them further across the floor, and Jinyoung shakes his shirt with impatient emphasis. 

“This is _mine,_ not yours.” 

Jaebeom narrows his eyes, looking like he’s up for a fight again. 

And what a fight it had been. 

The new closet had been quite the expansive collection — intricate jackets with pearls sewn into the lapels, a spectrum of white and blue shirts Jinyoung had specifically requested with a loose ribbon style lacing the back, and pants with gold and silver trim running up the line of the leg. 

Jaebeom had taken one look at it and turned to Jinyoung’s closet as usual. 

Jinyoung had been fond with exasperation at first. 

(“No,” he had gently stopped Jaebeom’s hands, already locked around a shirt. “You don’t need to wear my clothes now.”

He nudges Jaebeom just a few steps over so he can face his own closet. Between their overlapping hands, Jinyoung’s shirt hangs suspended. 

Jaebeom looks back at him, wearing confusion with a pout that usually makes Jinyoung give within seconds. 

But he thinks he should be clear this time. For all the unconventional things Jinyoung tolerates and even appreciates, he still adheres to propriety for propriety’s sake. And now, there’s no excuse for him to let Jaebeom go on as he did before, so unabashedly bare for everyone to see. 

“Jaebeom, my shirt-,” he tugs with intention this time, but Jaebeom frowns, holding the shirt just as adamantly. 

Jinyoung tries with words. “Let go, please.” He wraps a hand around Jaebeom’s tensed wrist in warning. 

Jaebeom does not, and Jinyoung’s patience breaks too early in the day.

He tightens his grip until Jaebeom’s wrist is digging into his palm, his fingers bruising Jaebeom’s skin, and yanks the shirt free with his other hand. 

He knows, he’s going a little too far. His fingers burn with friction, and unwanted anger is a familiar heat beneath his skin. 

He realizes, he’s hurt Jaebeom again, the red branding his arm, but by then, his apology is numb on his tongue. 

Jaebeom stares at him for a moment, his wrist still held between them. Then, he’s ripping away, striding up to the open closet, and with one vindictive look, he tosses everything inside to the floor. 

In a flurry of finely pressed silks and woven cotton, Jinyoung wonders if he's really going to be wed to a child. With the prolonged preparations for the upcoming assembly, it’s the first time he’s weak enough to allow himself to grow frustrated with Jaebeom as he is. 

How, despite the light adoration Jinyoung feels, there’s always something missing. How, when Jaebeom clings to him, Jinyoung is never able to return his embrace entirely. In the end, how he will always be tied to Jinyoung because he can’t be on his own. 

Beyond that, Jinyoung can never understand someone who doesn’t seem to know himself. 

— And that same dark heavy weight in his chest that has been lodged there since the moonlight had pooled beneath his legs across forbidden stone, it pulses with an ugly reminder).

Jinyoung doesn’t want to think about this right now. The unsure, vague impulses make him feel dizzy - out of control. At a standstill with a half-naked Jaebeom still adamantly sat on his clothes, he’s very close to slipping. 

Instead, he closes his eyes, breathes in once, and turns briskly on his heel. 

It’s only as he enters his study, collapsing onto his chair, that he notices the wrinkled shirt still clutched between his fingers.

-

Jinyoung’s own guilt makes him wonder whether Jaebeom’s dark eyes had seen through him that morning. It makes him hesitate as the echo of his own thoughts reminds him just exactly what he was thinking about Jaebeom. 

It makes him fear that Jaebeom, despite never saying a word, knows every terrible lie and intention Jinyoung hides. 

He takes his lunch in the study, and when dinner time comes, he keeps the door obstinately shut. The shirt from this morning is folded at the corner of his desk, and every time Jinyoung is reminded of it, he forces himself to turn back to the last pile of letters on his desk.

He does forget about it - in fact, he forgets about everything so thoroughly that by the time he blinks awake, it’s pitch black night outside. Save for the moon’s swollen eye. 

It’s habitual instinct that carries him out of his study, a lone candle snuffed out and trailing smoke behind him. Half-asleep from exhaustion, all he can think of is Jaebeom’s warmth, the fragrance of his bare neck against his lips. 

And so, half-asleep he shocks himself awake when he stumbles into the bedroom. The floor is clean and sparkling under the usual beam of moonlight, but Jinyoung looks at the lone figure on the bed and - hesitates. 

The ruined collar of his shirt shifts like startled moth wings between his fingers, and that’s right, he meant to apologize. Before day breaks, before he’s forced to put some distance between him and Jaebeom.

It’s not easy, to apologize to someone who might never respond alike. Jinyoung still can’t understand exactly what the fight over clothes had been about. It had felt deeper than just that - sharing clothes between two people. 

Now, he tries to be tender through the heavy darkness, threaded with silver moonlight.

Carefully, achingly he crawls into bed behind Jaebeom. His knees tangle between the other’s bare thighs, and as his arms settle around the same old nightshirt, Jinyoung wonders if Jaebeom even went outside at all. 

Jaebeom startles, but he doesn’t acknowledge Jinyoung. Only lays there, touching but not quite. A dull pain resonates from where Jinyoung feels Jaebeom’s skin through his clothing, as if needing, yearning to press closer as they have always done. 

The silence of their overlapping breaths is enough for Jinyoung to try again, if only tentatively. 

They’re both stuck, laying over the covers again. With one hand he clumsily shakes open the shirt and covers what he can of Jaebeom’s legs. He thinks he can catch a glint of surprise then in Jaebeom’s turned cheek. 

“Sorry.” He closes his eyes and breathes steadily against Jaebeom’s neck. The short hairs tickle strangely against his forehead.

What is he apologizing for - the clothes, the damning imprint of his hand, or his guilty conscience? Would he even recognize Jaebeom’s wordless forgiveness?

Jaebeom’s silence is enough of a reply. But Jinyoung has to leave soon, so he presses on. 

“Jaebeom, I have to leave tomorrow, so-” he breathes out deeply and tries to remember how it felt to be raw and open, and he pushes all of it into his voice. 

“ _i_ _’m sorry_.” 

As always, there is no reply. 

But as Jinyoung had grown accustomed to Jaebeom’s little touches, every automatic press of their shoulders, the space between his fingers filled by Jinyoung’s own - 

Now Jaebeom curls tighter, shifts Jinyoung’s shirt further over his thighs and presses Jinyoung’s hands ever closer to his own body. 

Even without forgiveness, Jinyoung can fall asleep because Jaebeom seeks him out in return. He lets his hands form a cradle over the soft space of his stomach, just for tonight. 

Because, in the end, they’re both too used to finding comfort in each other’s arms.

-

Jinyoung is out of bed before Jaebeom can even rouse. Perhaps, he is aware, but barely so as Jinyoung sweeps his shorn bangs across his forehead as one last indulgence.

Jinyoung has no more room to consider the space between them.

When he comes back, he doesn’t know if that will change. If his own plans will still be the same. 

The day is spent checking carriages and supplies that Jinyoung oversees, item by item. By sunset, he is the last one to be checked off. 

Between lists, pausing under the glare of the sun, his mind had wandered to Jaebeom. Whether he was bathing under the same heat with his collar open, or if he might be curled rebelliously in bed instead. 

He wondered if he should’ve said goodbye more clearly. 

The dusk is setting in like rough, hewn silk over the horizon, and Jinyoung decides against it. Instead of goodbyes, it should be promises, apologies sweetened upon his return. 

He sets on his way with the intention of those promises, of returning sooner than later. 

-

“You look absolutely wretched,” Jackson winks as he taps his champagne glass against Jinyoung’s. As such, it seems like he’s simply sharing a very charming secret, and Jinyoung can’t help but admire his easy demeanor. 

“Says the showboat,” Jinyoung blatantly tips his flute up for a deep, much needed drink. He has it on good authority that his hair is swept like a perfect crown atop his head. 

Jackson grates on his nerves in the warm, irritatingly fond way he remembers, just like bubbles fizzing sharply beneath his skin. The other prince laughs with a small huff of breath and sips delicately at his own glass. 

“Trouble in paradise?” Jackson wheedles, sidling closer because of course, he knows about Jinyoung’s affairs. Half of the room must, given the crafty stares bouncing from the polished walls to his back, sliding down like oil across water. 

Jinyoung deflects with a click of his tongue. “Don’t pretend - I know you’re only asking after my brother.”

Jackson flushes eagerly. Shameless, he doesn’t even bother to deny Jinyoung. 

“Well,” Jinyoung feigns a sigh, “you know he never comes to these things.” 

Jackson exclaims loudly, cupping his cheek like a lovestruck girl. “That cold, pretty face! I was looking forward to my precious annual meeting with it. He could glare at me and I’d die happy.” 

Jinyoung’s poised features twist. No one should refer to his brother with those words, least of all his best friend. 

Jackson has been nursing a starry-eyed infatuation with his brother ever since he accidentally kissed Jinyoung one punch-drunk summer night and told him he wished it had been Mark instead. Jinyoung had been against it from the beginning, kiss notwithstanding, and with every year that Jackson’s disgusting pining refuses to wane, Jinyoung maintains it as a point of contention between them.

Playful, teasing, but he knows when to bring it up. 

“Well, why wouldn’t the crown prince attend an assembly in his own kingdom-” Jackson shrugs, draping himself over Jinyoung’s shoulder as they both survey the gleaming crowd. 

“Unless,” and he gets that look in his eye that says he’s going to wheedle until Jinyoung gives in, “I should be calling you first prince now?” He flutters his lashes demurely. 

Jinyoung snorts at the other’s sultry tone. A few heads turn and he shakes Jackson off his shoulder with a cool smile. 

“You wish, kinky bastard,” he mutters, hiding his words in the golden, resonant echoes of glass and champagne. 

Then, his words grow lower beneath the hum of the crowd, bitter lead souring the taste on his tongue. “He hates all of - this. The planning, the performance, the crown even.”

He leans back against the wall, letting his eyes flutter shut. “If only…”

_If only Father would see me first._

_If only Jaebeom would birth an heir._

Jackson’s abrasive sunshine cuts through the perpetual haze that has been in his mind. 

“For someone so smart, you are tragically dumb to a fault, Jinyoung.” 

“Shut up.” Jinyoung snaps automatically, but he’s already blinking away the dark clouds. “What do you even know?”

“ _I_ know that you’re going to marry that Lunaris prince,” and Jackson’s eyes glimmer, a tiger shark looming over a sandbed, and Jinyoung always seems to forget why they’re friends in the first place, until Jackson finds the opportunity to remind him. Like those fencing rapiers he prefers, he can bend and push at any will. 

“And I know that you surely won’t pass up such an opportunity right at the tip of your nose. Or, really-” he smiles, and it’s like the sword has flipped, flat and harmless, “in your bed.”

“You know, Mark hates it when people run their mouth.” Jinyoung adamantly tries not to think about Jaebeom in his bed, asleep now or perhaps silent and resigned to a nightmare. 

Does Jaebeom dream? He wouldn’t know. 

“Oh, don’t~ I know what you’re doing,” Jackson whines, but he’s still grinning sharply. “Why don’t you have him in the palm of your hand already?” 

Jinyoung would do most anything for the crown, but for Jaebeom - innocent and adoring, who fits himself willingly into the palm of his hand - the thought of it makes his chest pulse with a strange sensation. 

And yet, hasn’t that been Jinyoung’s intention from the very beginning? 

He lets truth and uncertainty slip together, until it all blurs. “It’s...not like that.” 

Jackson has the audacity to look skeptical. “It’s not?”

Jinyoung glares at him silently, holding his wide, earnest stare until it’s too much. He ducks down towards the fizzing champagne instead. Jackson’s honest curiosity forces him into confusion about his own intentions. 

Jackson suddenly breaks into rough, barking laughter. 

“Oh, Jinyoung, Park Jinyoung - don’t tell me, what’s wrong with you?” 

He turns Jinyoung towards him with a shaking, gleeful expression. It’s a rhetorical question, he knows exactly what it is. 

And Jinyoung, damn him and his irrevocable feelings - 

Somehow, he doesn’t stop him. 

“ _are you in love?_ ”

Jinyoung resolutely stays silent. 

Jackson coos, hands flying over Jinyoung’s cheeks obnoxiously. “Look at you, the great Park Jinyoung - you should have just said so!”

Jinyoung smacks him away, eyes flickering as angry, red embarrassment steals over his face. A blooming rash, an automatic sickness of the heart. “Shut your mouth - I don’t know what I want-”

Then softer, a lost revelation: “I don’t even know what _he_ wants.” 

Jackson watches him fall silent, one of those mercurial shifts in his mood again. Jinyoung is always the type to be burdened by his thoughts, letting them blind him from the rest of the world. Jackson has always known what a careful negotiator his friend is, but at times like these, his meticulousness simply leaves him at a standstill. 

So, Jackson nudges him along with a suggestion. 

“Well, have you ever asked him?” 

Jinyoung glances at him once, dismissive, and then a second time, as if finally turning it over in that big, jumbled head of his. Jackson waits earnestly under the expansive glow of the villa. 

“I...it’s not exactly easy, you know,” he eventually amends, neither denying nor confirming Jackson’s question. 

Jackson grins, immensely excited at this oddly awkward parody of his friend before him. And Jinyoung calls him the fool!

“Well,” he slings a heavy arm around Jinyoung’s shoulder, settling them back against the wall for the night, “that’s where _communication_ comes in, lover boy.” 

Jinyoung rolls his eyes, but Jackson begins blathering on and on, and even as he aches with the lingering sight of Jaebeom’s back to him, he finds himself eased by Jackson’s rough edges. He’s crude, unfiltered, and much too loud, but against Jinyoung’s sharp corners, he sands them down just enough to get him to relax. 

“Hey-,” the other prince pauses in his rant about the intricacies of gifting bouquets to poke at Jinyoung’s feigned doze, “let me stay over for a few nights and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” 

Jinyoung blinks. “If you would like.” 

Jackson startles, arm dropping before jostling Jinyoung into an even tighter hug. “I can’t believe it, you really have changed!” 

It’s all an excuse of course. Jackson may tease shamelessly and Jinyoung will never say it, but he’s missed the simplicity of their relationship. With Jackson, he can smile a little sharper, let his hair fall into his eyes as they talk openly of secrets in the shadow. 

For a moment, the night seems to flicker, dark beyond the glowing hall of the villa, and Jinyoung’s chest fills, suffocating with a familiar sense of guilt. 

Jackson’s laughter brushes with the promise of sweet champagne drunkenness over his cheek, and Jinyoung tells the night, the swelling moon, that it will only be a few more days. 

What are a few more nights with a dear friend in comparison to the promise of a lifetime?

-

Jinyoung’s footsteps echo something familiar across the dark, slick marble. He’s arrived late, as planned, and there’s no one else to fill the silence trailing behind him.

The moon slips through an open balcony, bone-white, and Jinyoung remembers the feeling of it, silk creeping beneath the skin. He shivers with déjà vu.

He pauses in front of his door again. His fingers brush over the cold, frozen handle and for a moment, it’s like he’s seeing into a mirror. Another set of fingertips meet his, solid and warm at the tips across a veil of sea, silver, and moonlight. 

Through the shimmer, Jinyoung is looking into himself, eyes dark and unsure, the night he had met Jaebeom. 

Then, the handle jerks down on its own and the strange veil is torn in two by Jaebeom tumbling into his arms. 

Jinyoung falls back with Jaebeom against his chest, everywhere at once, crushing the very breath from him. His head pulses against the marble floor with the promise of a bruise, from the feeling of Jaebeom’s soft body pressing into his again. 

Jaebeom looks up, and Jinyoung regrets everything.

Because even when he was a stranger in a strange land, he had lain in Jinyoung’s bed, bared beneath him without any hesitation. Returning to his own mother who no longer wanted him, the beloved kingdom that had given him away, he had been the only one strong enough to pull Jinyoung out from that dark place. Upon their leave, there had been no tears in his steady eyes. 

But it’s Jinyoung who sees him crying now, and he looks at Jinyoung like he’s breaking. 

Somehow, it’s Jinyoung’s departure that has made him fall apart, truly and completely for the first time. 

Jinyoung takes in the devastation of those black eyes, the uneven blotches of pink on wet, shaking cheeks, and he thinks he might break as well. 

He does the only thing he can think of, pulling Jaebeom’s face to his as he laves the endless tears away with his lips. He can taste the salt of his apologies, the hiccuping gasps from Jaebeom’s swollen mouth, and he whispers it over and over again-

“ _jaebeom, jaebeom, i’m sorry. I won’t leave you. I promise._ ” 

Jaebeom clings to him. Curled over the floor, there is nothing of the past distance, the stilted line of Jaebeom’s back and the wordless tension between them. With Jaebeom pressed against his chest, Jinyoung can feel the intensity of his sobs shake inside his own body. 

As always, he is silent. Jinyoung wishes that he could hear him, just this once, even if it has to be the wretched sounds of his crying. 

Jinyoung’s words, as careful and fixed as they may be upon his practiced tongue, have been nothing but false. Colorful shadows in the refractions of a brittle diamond. 

And yet, they’re all he can offer to a crying Jaebeom. 

As they tangle around one another in bed, he talks, babbles, whispers nonsense, until the severity of Jaebeom’s shaking gives way to the simple rising of his chest. Jinyoung can feel it, more intimate than the way they have lain together, naked and coated in sweat and more. 

“-should have seen them, Jaebeom, the lights were strung all throughout the villa like a river of stars. I’ll take you with me next time, promise-”

Jinyoung thinks he sounds a little mad, unlike himself, but he can’t bring himself to stop. The space of his bed is too large, and Jaebeom has gone still within his arms. If he stops and Jaebeom starts to cry again, Jinyoung’s heart might bleed out through his mouth. 

Jaebeom is the one who cuts him off with a kiss. Deep enough for Jaebeom to push his tongue into his mouth, just like the first time Jinyoung taught him to do so. 

It tastes sweet, like grapefruit and peonies spilling over on a summer day. And when Jaebeom pulls back to brush their noses together with a little exhale, he thinks this must be forgiveness. 

Tentative, it's beyond gentle, breathless, as he looks into Jaebeom’s slim eyes. Swollen but Jinyoung can tell he’s smiling. 

“I won’t leave you.” 

He wants to say more, but there’s already something more selfish at the tip of his tongue. 

“Stay with me?”

Jaebeom cups his head with both hands and kisses him, wholly, deeply, pushing their bodies together in hard desperation, and Jinyoung hopes that’s what his answer is. 

Jaebeom’s fingers soothing over his cheeks, pulling his hair from its intricate crown is as close to a promise as they’re capable of. 

_as you are_

“How is it that your hair is already this long?” Jinyoung wonders aloud, running his fingers through the fluffy strands at Jaebeom’s neck. 

Jaebeom snuffles, pushing back until Jinyoung’s fingers are scratching over his scalp. 

It’s a messy picture of domesticity. Jaebeom mussed from a perpetual doze, wearing Jinyoung’s shirt unbuttoned across his collar bone, bare legs tangled in the noon sun. 

They’ve been like this for days - Jinyoung taking his work neatly in bed and Jaebeom happy to sleep through morning and noon and occasionally shift against Jinyoung, seeking out his touch. 

The maids have been slightly scandalized, setting down lunch and dinner trays with hurried bows at the stretch of pale skin. He can hear their excited whispers in the hallways right outside, no decency to walk even a bit further. 

Jinyoung, shamelessly, enjoys it. 

It’s only temporary, but he had promised Jaebeom after all. To stay - to never leave him behind. 

And Jaebeom seems perfectly content to curl up at his side with nothing of the gardens he loves so much to keep him company, except for the sunlight in the open window. 

Jinyoung does wonder though. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go outside?” He’s taken up the habit of talking more to Jaebeom, sometimes at him. It feels a little strange, being met with the playback of his own voice, but Jaebeom’s dark eyes always seems to say something words can’t. 

Jaebeom sprawls over his lap and rubs his head into Jinyoung’s stomach, turning those fine strands into messy curls. 

“You can wear my clothes, if you want,” Jinyoung sweeps back Jaebeom’s hair with his palm, making Jaebeom squint up at him with bleary eyes.

Jinyoung hums, lightly bouncing Jaebeom’s doughy cheek in his free hand. “Though I do want to see how you look in your own,” he can’t help but tease. Jaebeom simply lays back down over his stomach, as if resolved to not move a muscle more. 

He’s aware, how much he’s spoiling Jaebeom, but god - it’s hard not to. After the fight that was never quite about what it was and a distance left unresolved, he’s selfish with the feeling of Jaebeom willingly seeking him out again. 

It won’t last like this though. Jinyoung has the kingdom to think of, and somehow, he thinks Jaebeom lives for the gardens and sunshine as much as Jinyoung lives for the complexities of the court. The world outside waits. 

He dozes for now, with only the distant sensation of the sun soaking through his clothes and Jaebeom cradled in the palm of his hand. 

-

The next morning Jinyoung rises first, and as always, he carefully untangles Jaebeom from him and brushes the hair from his forehead. 

He likes the way Jaebeom looks like that, soft, with his forehead bare in the morning light. 

He dresses out of habit, buttoning himself into a starched shirt and lacing up fitted trousers even as his eyes remain half-closed. Jaebeom is allowed to lounge around in his sleep clothes, but Jinyoung finds he needs the separation between night and day.

In bed all day, Jinyoung is most settled in his own skin with the poised, pressed folds of his clothes keeping him upright against the rumpled bedding. 

As he slicks the segments of his bangs back into a sculpted crown, he sees a hint of movement in the grey light. 

Jaebeom stumbles up to his side, so bleary with sleep his face swollen into an automatic pout. Jinyoung is pleasantly surprised, and he says so as he flicks one last strand into place. 

“You’re up,” and he has to laugh a little at how Jaebeom frowns with his eyes closed at the morning intrusion. 

Then, he’s surprised further as Jaebeom gropes for his closet, right beside Jinyoung’s, flinging it open to pull at the first set of clothes he sees. 

Jinyoung has forgotten that despite the muteness, the strange air of innocence and ignorance, Jaebeom is a prince just like him. Until now, that is. 

He watches as Jaebeom pulls on the powder-blue shirt, his movements a deft mirror of Jinyoung’s own, pinching and settling the tight seams over his broad shoulders. It’s a perfect fit. 

When he rolls the trousers up his legs, covering pale skin in a tight expanse of black, Jinyoung can’t help but follow the line of curling silver trim all the way up to his waist.

He looks like such a prince with his stark raven hair swept back from his jaw and now, with the clothes to match, the slope of his shoulders, the cut of his tight waist, it’s a statement of his heritage above all else. 

Jinyoung almost imagines the crown would fit Jaebeom better. 

Still, Jaebeom fumbles with the satin lacings at his back, and Jinyoung steps around him to help in his quiet wonder. 

It’s no wonder Jaebeom isn’t familiar with them. Solare fashion favors the ease of summer heat, and Jinyoung is sure no such lacings existed in the ethereal stillness of Lunaris. 

He had requested this fashion for the purposes of weather, but the glimpses of Jaebeom’s smooth skin dotted with freckles through crisscrossed laces is not an unwelcome morning view. 

He can’t help but smooth a finger up beneath the lacing, testing the overlocking strings and tracing the warm curve of Jaebeom’s back. Jaebeom arches slightly, away or into his touch, but he doesn’t turn around. 

Jinyoung likes it, the little flashes of skin under otherwise decent clothes. How Jaebeom might turn and beneath the pressed cotton, Jinyoung will catch a glimpse of the milky softness of his lower back. 

It’s too early for this, he thinks with half-lidded eyes. And yet his hands remain a second longer on Jaebeom’s bare back, itching to tug every taut ribbon lattice free. 

He wants to see how the blue might look under the sun, against Jaebeom’s skin and the teasing flashes of his back. 

“Why don’t you go outside, hm?” 

Jaebeom slips away and falls back onto the bed. All dolled up and ready to go back to sleep. 

Jinyoung follows. Jaebeom’s eyes are closed - whether content or simply ignoring him, he wouldn’t be able to guess. 

As it is, he can’t stop the huff of laughter. “You’re a strange one,” he whispers, automatically reaching out to brush back the wisps of hair already curling over Jaebeom’s neck.

Jaebeom relaxes immediately, and yet, Jinyoung can feel his pulse, burning his heartbeat into his fingers. 

He doesn’t understand where the impulse comes from, only that Jaebeom’s eyes grow wide and perhaps, he finally understands the wisps of silk, fleeting hints of smoke that pass as thoughts through Jaebeom’s mind-

His fingers are long enough that when he presses down, they circle around Jaebeom’s bare throat. 

It’s light, hovering, just barely there, but he can feel Jaebeom’s breath hitch. Like a hammer striking upon steel at a perfect point. 

Jaebeom’s eyes flicker, vulnerable, _wanting_. 

Jinyoung’s hold loosens, and Jaebeom responds immediately by arching up into his touch. The thick, rigid column of his throat, covered entirely by his hand. 

Jinyoung grips a little harder, enough to make Jaebeom naturally tense. Yet, he relaxes a second later, sprawling limply under Jinyoung’s palm with a kind of lazy elegance. 

“So that’s what you like,” Jinyoung murmurs, keeping his hand there. It’s not tight or meant to mark with cruel bruises, but a security of some sort. 

“You don’t like your neck bared do you?” Jinyoung feels like he’s coming to one revelation after another. With the haircut and then Jinyoung leaving, well, Jaebeom would have been left all too open on his own. 

Jaebeom’s throat rumbles, and it’s practically a purr. 

It satisfies that odd urge within him, something like possessiveness as he bears his palm into that warm sound. 

(Jinyoung pauses in the bustle of the crowd before an open table of wares.

Jackson immediately catches on, and he leans in close next to Jinyoung to whisper slyly.

“You should spoil him with presents - make him feel like he’s wanted, you know?”

Jinyoung rolls his eyes, but he’s still looking over the table. Leathers of various designs and lengths are lined before him, each one simple enough to be repurposed into anything from parts of a bridle to a sleeve cuff. 

“I’m not some rich patron and he’s not a kept boy.” Jackson smiles unabashedly at that, and Jinyoung deigns to ignore him.

“He could afford anything he wants,” but he’s already reaching for one embroidered band, picking it up to test its give between his fingers. 

It’s a soft leather with a bit of stretch. He imagines it would warm quickly to bare skin. He imagines the tan brown of it would cover flashes of a pale neck nicely. 

“Oh,” Jackson happily pushes his head into his space, “I like it. Good choice. ”

“Not for you,” Jinyoung rebukes, slipping it out of sight, but Jackson is right. There’s a moon etched into the center with sprawling clouds that trail into delicate leaves along the border. 

He thinks it’s perfect). 

It is perfect when Jinyoung fits it around Jaebeom’s neck, pulling a black ribbon through the silver eyelets he had cut into the leather himself. He laces the edges closed and lets go. 

Loose enough for the space of two fingers, but tight enough to be a reminder, pressed breathlessly to his throat. 

Jaebeom tosses onto his side curiously, fingers coming up to pull at the leather. He seeks out Jinyoung, wondrous as his lips part, pink and trembling. As if there’s something he might say. 

“Go on,” Jinyoung tips his head towards the open window, where sunshine is pouring like a glittering ocean across the floor. 

Jaebeom’s fingers dance across the edge where leather meets skin, and then he lets it settle. 

He rolls across the bed, shaking himself free of the covers, and Jinyoung is watching as Jaebeom finally rises, stretching the languid line of his back before he’s disappearing beyond the door. 

Amidst the pattering of bare feet down marble tiles, Jinyoung realizes he should have encouraged him to wear shoes as well. 

-

The maids, the fussy gossip-mongers they are, are overjoyed to see their second - second prince back to basking in the garden. 

Jinyoung imagines they must’ve forgotten how much grief Jaebeom has caused them in the past, with his hair catching in overhanging branches and his fingers stained in flower pulp. 

Now a few of them trail behind him constantly like tiny, fluttering moths. They constantly pull at his fitted clothes, picking away bits of green and plucking the spontaneous little flower crowns from his hands. 

Jinyoung supposes some of them have gotten a few ideas of their own when Jaebeom flops back onto their bed with his hair in a collapsed up-do. It must have been quite the intricate work, delicate and not at all made for the kind of wild frolicking Jaebeom is so inclined towards. 

Bits of flowers, the tiny ones that grow like weeds through cracks, are woven into braids that are now coming loose at the end. Thin petals scatter, pink and purple, across his dark bedspread. 

Even ruined, Jinyoung likes the way the loose strands are pulled back to frame Jaebeom’s face. To show off his high cheeks, his bare forehead. Strong and soft with that slitted gaze of his. 

“Don’t give them too much grief.” Despite that, he tangles his fingers further through the mess of loose hair and curled braids, and it’s all falling apart as Jaebeom wriggles into the cradle of his palm. 

Jinyoung strokes over his cheek, and fits his palm over the length of Jaebeom’s neck, the warm leather band.

He can only watch with idle amusement as Jaebeom’s hair - and it’s so long again, almost curling to the top of his nape - is twisted into intricate variations that are promptly ruined by a few fanciful touches.

The most sturdy one, a half-up half-down look that is balanced by a few precarious pins, falls apart by the noon hour. 

Jinyoung shouldn’t laugh, he really shouldn’t, but when he passes by Jaebeom with his little entourage, the head maid’s face forces him to press his lips together in a semblance of his usual geniality. 

She looks intently at the back of Jaebeom’s head, this time bearing a coiled top-knot, visibly trembling as if her entire being rested on how intact his hair remained for the day. 

It’s immensely amusing, but Jinyoung doesn’t want another frustrated Jaebeom burying his head for days into a mountain of pillows. 

In the end, Jinyoung turns a sleepy Jaebeom towards him in the first hours of morning and ties back half of his hair with a cord from his hunting cloak. The rest he leaves to drape over his neck, the edges of the leather band. 

It’s a bit lopsided - admittedly Jinyoung does not have the same skill, but Jaebeom only shakes a few baby hairs free at the new feeling. 

It stays intact all day, through wild garden frolicking and errant naps, and the maids with their quick butterfly fingers have to concede to a simple strip of braided cord. 

So it is Jinyoung who fits the leather band across Jaebeom’s neck, Jinyoung who pulls his hair back in the drowsy morning. 

Jinyoung, who unravels the cord to watch as black locks spill free with a hush over Jaebeom’s cheeks, kisses his nape in the quiet of the night, right above the pink imprints left behind by the leather. 

It is Jaebeom who presents his back to him every night, sweeping his hair away as he waits for Jinyoung. Jaebeom, who leans back into the fingers that tug the ribbon loose, and arches into the palm that remains pressed there for a second longer. 

He falls asleep with Jinyoung’s hand, soft and heavy, still covering the bare skin there. 

(And when Jaebeom’s hair spills out in long curls past his chin, the band with the moon remains snugly tied around his neck). 

_you have such a way with your words, your pretty mouth and filthy tongue_

Jinyoung learns that Jaebeom likes it when he talks - during the day and in bed. 

It had never come up before. Jaebeom is, well, silent, and Jinyoung enjoys the sex for what it is. His hands on Jaebeom’s hips, the sight of his cock slipping in and out of Jaebeom’s wet hole, and the shy little expressions that flicker over Jaebeom’s face.

It’s a panting, gasping affair from his side, and he likes to pretend the moans pressed against Jaebeom’s mouth are a reflection of the other’s pleasure. 

It slips free one day. Jaebeom has made him more talkative, among other shameless, foolish things. 

“You’re so tight-” he whispers as Jaebeom bucks back against him erratically. 

Jinyoung holds him down by the hips, and part of him wants the supple curves there to bruise by next day’s light. He stays there, seated entirely inside Jaebeom, and watches as Jaebeom arches, eyes glazed, practically begging. 

It’s that impulse, the one that wants Jaebeom to _beg_ , that makes him open his mouth again. 

“So good, you’re so good for me, aren’t you? You want everything, don’t you?” 

Jaebeom clenches around him so tightly, Jinyoung thinks he came from that alone. 

When he looks down, Jaebeom is still flushed and hard against his stomach, but the look on his face - half turned into the pillow, feverishly pink as his eyes flicker back and forth to Jinyoung’s and away again -

Jinyoung thinks he finally knows what Jaebeom likes, and he bites down on Jaebeom’s lips until they open with a punctured cry so he can taste Jinyoung’s words upon his tongue. 

“I’ll give it to you.” 

He thrusts up, as deep as he can go, and watches as Jaebeom’s body locks into a twitching, shivering standstill. A dry gasp tears through the air. Jaebeom practically breaks from embarrassment and pleasure. 

When Jaebeom comes down, there’s the silver hint of tears slipping down the corners of his eyes. 

Later, when Jinyoung is laid next to him, content to trace the moon on his cheek to the dip of his collarbones, everything is soft between them. 

Jaebeom dozes, and Jinyoung can’t help but whisper one last tease. 

“You liked that, didn’t you?” 

Jaebeom’s dark eyes snap open with a glare, and his hand resting over Jinyoung’s hip delivers a sharp pinch. Jinyoung curls up with a surprised cry, and Jaebeom subsequently rolls over with a huff. 

Jinyoung still crowds against his back a second later, nuzzling a kiss behind his ear, and Jaebeom lets him. He’s already forgiven without another word. 

So that’s it. Jaebeom likes being teased. 

Jinyoung is willing to take full advantage of that. 

-

He tests, teases, and pushes, until Jaebeom post-climax, shivering with a few stray tears glistening on his cheeks is a ready, welcome sight. 

.

“You’re so wet for me, you’re practically leaking-” Jinyoung gasps without hesitation as Jaebeom rides him, the thick lines of his thighs tensed so beautifully. 

Jaebeom’s legs still, and this time, he clenches himself closed atop of Jinyoung with the most embarrassed look on his face. 

Jinyoung slides a palm between his legs, pushes a finger into the slick part connecting them, and Jaebeom comes a second later with Jinyoung’s voice against his neck. 

.

“Be good, okay - be good for me, you always get like this when you haven’t been fucked hard enough -” 

Jaebeom scrabbles against the bedding, his face half-buried, squished shut, into a pillow, and Jinyoung doesn’t give him the opportunity to hide any further. 

He pulls Jaebeom back by one arm, and it’s an awkward position with him teetering over their tangled legs, but he can see it, the pretty flush on his face, the glistening tears, how Jaebeom’s mouth is gasping, asking him for more.

He kisses Jaebeom, open and filthy as he rewards him. 

“You’re always so desperate for my cock.” Jaebeom cries into his mouth and spills all over the sheets, hips jerking wildly with Jinyoung still inside him. 

“Good, Jaebeom.” 

He pulls out and lays a trembling Jaebeom gently back against the bed. Soothes his tangled hair back from his forehead, presses his lips to the twin moles on a fluttering lid. 

“So good for me.” 

.

Jinyoung finds that Jaebeom likes it best when he’s dirty, slow, and just on the edge of tenderness. 

“I like it when you get like this,” he confesses earnestly, rocking into the soft space between Jaebeom’s spread thighs with an aching rhythm. 

Jaebeom’s hands tighten around his neck, pulling fiercely, and Jinyoung goes. 

“You’re always so pretty when you’re about to come,” he whispers up-close, bracketing Jaebeom’s head with his arms. Jaebeom’s wide eyes are fixed, shaking, on his mouth. 

A second later, Jinyoung’s head is hitting the pillows as Jaebeom flips him firmly onto his back. 

He settles over his lap, and with glistening eyes, covers Jinyoung’s mouth with his palm. 

Still, that doesn’t stop Jinyoung. The low whispers spill out over Jaebeom’s palm, through his fingers, slow and quick, dirty, wet, adoring. 

By the time Jaebeom’s legs are weak, simply twitching in place, his hand is uselessly clenched over Jinyoung’s chest as the same voice is tenderly working its way into his ear:

“Come for me.” 

It’s the first time Jinyoung thinks he can really hear it, the rasp of Jaebeom’s voice against his lips in the hazy moonlight - “ _please_.” 

.

It’s natural that _that_ kind of talk follows. Inevitable even, given Jinyoung’s own immutable fixations. 

But still, he hadn’t expected those words to slip from his mouth- and it seems for Jaebeom, even less so. 

It’s on a night nearing the full moon, and the usual light spilling through the window is unusually bright on Jaebeom’s body. It makes every movement slow between them, the drag of his cock heavy and Jaebeom’s arching stomach swollen with promise. 

It’s only a play of shadows and light, but images are flickering over Jinyoung’s eyes, and he still _wants_ \- given everything that’s changed, he won’t heed those dark secrets working their way out from cold stone, but that one desire hasn’t left the crevices of his mind-

Jaebeom’s eyes are clenched shut, his pale fingers locked beside his head, and Jinyoung can’t stop himself from pressing a palm over the curve of his stomach.

They’re desperate today, rutting into one another from the intensity of the summer heat, and the strange desires falling from Jinyoung’s mouth become words.

“Going to make it so you can’t walk, breed you until you’re nice and full with our child -”

Jaebeom comes instantly. His eyes are locked on Jinyoung’s the entire time. 

Even as his cock dribbles weakly against his stomach, the surge of his climax taking over him with automatic shivers, the shock of surprise doesn’t fade from his face. 

Jinyoung flops back onto the pillows with Jaebeom following, still tied to his dick. It’s his turn to hide his face beneath an arm as he tries to sort out the swirling haze of confusion beneath the lazy surge of pleasure. 

Embarrassment, he considers, grimacing - or just some deep-seated desire that almost made him see stars when Jaebeom’s flat stomach twitched around his cock. 

Finally, he raises his arm to glance at Jaebeom. 

Jaebeom cocks his head with simple curiosity. 

Jinyoung thinks his sigh contains more embarrassment than he’s felt in the past ten years of his life. 

“I’m…” he has to pause from the sheer audacity of Jaebeom’s plain gaze. “You must know that when this all started, it was with every intention to - conceive.”

Jaebeom sits up, shifting in his lap, his fingers softly going to his stomach. 

“Yes,” Jinyoung’s hand covers his, pressing into the natural little bulge there. “Despite my best efforts, I’ve kept you up for countless nights with nothing to show for it.” 

Jaebeom’s dark gaze slides over him like dew, down his arm to where both of their hands are connected. The delicate skin of his stomach. He glances up at Jinyoung, searching, truly asking - _is this what you’ve wanted all along?_

Jinyoung is incredulous, and adoringly so. 

“You’re lovely-” and really he is, all soft muscle and bruises that bloom so easily in the bare moonlight, but he digresses, “-and you mustn't mistake my affection, but, well-”

Jinyoung settles for the only explanation he knows. “Surely, you must know by now that all this was me trying my best to breed you.” 

Jaebeom’s mouth twitches, and he bounces experimentally in his lap.

Jinyoung wheezes, slightly more pain than pleasure. 

“Again?” 

Another light clench, and Jinyoung reaches full hardness exceedingly quickly. “Well,” he concedes, settling his hands on Jaebeom's already rolling hips, “you can’t blame me this time if the baby doesn’t take.” 

The moon is still at her height in the night sky, and Jinyoung wonders at the dark glint in Jaebeom’s eyes as their hands remain pressed over his stomach. 

_slowly, just turn my body_

The following days are what Jinyoung can only describe as a breeding frenzy.

As ashamed as he is to even think it - it’s the closest thing to the truth. 

Jaebeom is desperate for his words, the curving shape of his mouth, the quickness of his tongue. If he had shied away from the teasing before, still wearing that blush of pleasant embarrassment, now he begs for it with a boldness that suits him so well. 

It’s Jaebeom’s fingers scrabbling over his cheeks, smearing the wetness past the corner of Jinyoung’s lips. His mouth gasping open and closed as if mirroring the things he wants Jinyoung to say. 

And the things Jinyoung says as fingers push urgently against his mouth, catch on his teeth, are beyond filthy. Figments of the summer heat, dripping into the thickness of night between them. 

(“-spread yourself open, just like that, hold it for me”

“I’m going to be imprinted so deep inside you, you won’t be able to forget the feeling of me-”)

It’s almost surreal, how desperately it drives both of them into one another. Every night, Jinyoung feels like he’s going out of his mind. 

By daylight, he rouses, dry and aching, and everything from the past night is only a haze of a dream. Smoke fills his mouth, flashes of lurid heat and pleasure, and Jinyoung almost always feels like a different person. 

It’s the breeding talk that really makes Jaebeom go crazy. 

(“Fill you up, until you’re dripping for me, until you can’t close your legs-”

“Until I’ve put a child in you-”)

Jinyoung doesn’t know how much of it he means, but when Jaebeom arches back on top of him, so taut, so close to breaking as his stomach flutters - Jinyoung can’t seem to shut up. 

(“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”)

If only Jackson could see him now, he would call him shameless with that same lurid glint in his eye.

In idle hours, he sorts through his thoughts, quiet in an alcove flooded with pure sunshine. He wants an heir, of course, but the ink was dark enough to be spilled blood - he won’t heed its meanings. 

Despite that, what could this frenzied coupling result in? They’ve done this before, albeit with less intensity. 

In the end, Jinyoung dozes in the quiet glow of dust and sun, hand tapping at his cheek. He’s at a standstill. 

Jaebeom sleeps for most of the day in the garden now. Jinyoung can spot the shock of his hair, the glimpses of his back through the laces of his shirt in a parted wave of bright grass. When Jinyoung often joins him, he preens, curling into the hand soothing over his stomach. 

He’s become drowsy all the time, blinking up at Jinyoung with a dazed loveliness every time he’s roused. It’s like he’s filled up from their nights together, so much of it spilling over into the sunshine, and he’s simply waiting, waiting for the right time to really wake. 

It’s all idyllic in the summertime. 

Jinyoung lays back and closes his eyes in the still air, feeling for the promise of rain on the horizon. 

-

As he predicted, a summer storm crashes down from the sky days later. 

White marble is drenched in grey, and the maids walk carefully in their mud-slick heels, bundling the edges of their sopping skirts. 

Jinyoung roams the open balconies, his sleeves laden with untouched moisture as he folds them against his back. He’s not urgent - but well, he would hope even Jaebeom isn’t senseless enough to go traipsing about in this rain. 

Senseless or stubbornly unaware, he thinks. Jaebeom certainly doesn’t mind the sun bearing down on him as he naps in the open fields. 

The central gardens are clear of any activity, save for a few faraway dots of servants running from the rain. Still, no sign of Jaebeom, and Jinyoung allows himself to worry. 

Then, a rush of chatter that is just a beat louder than the murmuring storm. 

He finds Jaebeom, dripping wet across the slippery tile with a bustle of maids running towards him.

Jinyoung reaches him first, fingers searching across his cold cheeks, combing back all the messy hair that’s come free in the rain. He’s such a mess, rain running streaks of black ink and earth across his face, that Jinyoung can’t make out his expression.

“What were you doing out there,” he whispers, unconsciously massaging the dimples of Jaebeom’s cheeks. He’s chilled to the touch, and yet he still gives easily, soft beneath Jinyoung’s fingers. 

Jaebeom’s eyes glint with a reflection of the shining marble and he’s smiling, excited despite this dark storm, and his palms part slowly between them. 

Inside is a twitchy little sparrow, it’s feathers sticking up in every which way. Jinyoung has seen its kind perched in the spokes of the outer fields, their common brown spots blending into the shifting grains. 

Its beady black eyes jump all over the place, and Jinyoung thinks it's going to burst free, but Jaebeom only cups it tighter, cooing at the drenched thing. 

It’s only a hoarse hint of sound, but Jinyoung has never seen - or heard - him so endeared over something as simple as a barnyard sparrow. 

Jaebeom turns to him with a curl to his lips, their faces still brushing in the cold mist, and Jinyoung already knows-

“Really, you want to keep this thing?” He sighs, hands already moving over Jaebeom’s to keep the bird steady.

Jaebeom pouts, and Jinyoung rolls his eyes. It’s just a bird, he can’t believe Jaebeom is getting offended on its behalf, much less so go roaming about saving it in a summer rainstorm. 

When Jaebeom’s pout remains resolute, Jinyoung gives, but only enough to lead him out of the slick hallways with one hand around his wrist. 

Jaebeom’s palms shake minutely around the sparrow, and Jinyoung tries to soothe away the tremors in his arm. “We’ll get it a cage after you’re dry, alright?” He softens his voice because he wants to convince Jaebeom to go inside before anything else and if the bird is coming along - so be it. 

Jaebeom’s smile is a gentle reply in the crashing downpour. 

-

Jinyoung personally detests the shrill little thing. 

He wakes up reasonably early in the morning, but the sparrow’s lilting sing-song forces his eyes open in a burst of unwelcome clarity before the sun has even risen on most days. 

To make it worse, Jinyoung is now the one who turns over, muffling his head beneath the pillows, while Jaebeom happily slips out of bed to tend to the bird hanging from the open window. 

Jinyoung wishes with no remorse that the obnoxious thing might just slip free and fly away when Jaebeom opens up the cage one day. 

He does eventually blink his eyes blearily to the sight of Jaebeom, all bared in the morning light. The curve of his shoulders is strong and supple from the first rays of sun, and his smile is a brilliant thing as he leans out the window towards the noisy creature. 

Jinyoung curses it slightly less for this. 

The truth is, whatever Jaebeom wants, he’s willing to give. 

No tears and broken muted sounds - just those creased cheeks in blinding sunshine. 

_push into me, and i’ll spill out all of you_

Jaebeom’s drowsiness grows into a summer draught that leaves him practically debilitated all day long. 

Jinyoung finds that he rarely even makes it to the gardens anymore, so lethargic he simply curls up in whatever spot of sunshine happens to be nearest in the illustrious marble hallways.

So Jinyoung worries when Jaebeom, draped over the smooth edge of an alcove, leans weakly into his touch without opening his eyes.

“Jaebeom,” he hums, if only just to see how Jaebeom might react. 

Jaebeom sighs in his sleep, but he doesn’t rouse to Jinyoung’s voice and look at him adoringly, follow the tips of fingers along his cheek like a newborn kitten.

Jinyoung soothes his hair back from his forehead anyway. The little baby hairs spring back immediately, the rest following with a light, feathered hush. 

Beneath his palm, Jaebeom is burning up. 

Jinyoung can’t remember if he’s like this at night too, if the rest of his body shares this odd fever. At night, there’s already an uncontrollable heat between them, the one that leaves him in the strangest daze upon waking. 

Jinyoung knows that’s probably what’s giving Jaebeom this sleeping sickness. Knows that what they’re doing is beyond reasonable. Knows that they should stop. 

But every night is like clockwork - Jaebeom crawling over his lap with wet, begging eyes as he presses their hands to his stomach and Jinyoung losing his mind in the process. It grows in intensity with every passing cycle of the moon, surging beneath her pale curves like the crest of an infinite sea. 

Even if he doesn’t remember, the heat under his palm pulses, intimately familiar. 

Jaebeom shifts now, only slightly, but he smiles up at Jinyoung with that same fluttering recognition. Tender, bright, but so dazed - as if a part him is slipping away in the sunshine, perpetually trying to blink away the traces of sleep.

Jinyoung’s heart hurts, but Jaebeom is looking at him now, so he presses a thumb over the delicate skin of Jaebeom’s eyelid, the twin moons, and hopes he can stay awake for just a moment longer. 

-

Jinyoung snaps awake on a choked inhale of breath, something like a smothered fire caught in his chest. 

It’s still deep in the night, the bird is quiet amidst the eerie echoes of moonlight on marble, and Jaebeom is not in bed. 

_Jaebeom isn’t there at all_. Jinyoung’s chest pounds so abruptly it hurts - he can’t breathe. 

There’s a heat beneath his skin, threatening in raw red lines, a fever that’s going to rip him open from the veins inside-out if he doesn’t find Jaebeom and burn it away upon the cool moonlight of his cheek. It feels wrong, he’s not thinking right, _he_ feels hollow and parched to the core. 

None of this is right. 

The bird is quiet.

Jinyoung pulls on a loose cloak and runs barefoot for the gardens. 

Somehow, he has no idea where he’s going and yet his feet move with practiced intention. It hurts, the silt and stones of the damp earth caught in his heel, even new grass fresh with midnight dew too sharp for his soft skin. 

His heartbeat is the loudest, the most painful thing, and it burns a warning behind his eyes.

In the darkness, the moon is almost at her brightest in the sky. Jinyoung follows the white light in flashes of red. Heat, fever, and some kind of impulse that sings like magic in his veins. 

Jinyoung finds Jaebeom hasn’t gone far - only deep and hidden from the beaten path. 

It’s the same old summer pavilion, decrepit and rotting in the stillwater of the spilled fountain. Forgotten, until so recently. When he had found Jaebeom dozing against a stained pillar and almost kissed him out of curiosity. 

It’s strange now, that even untouched, the entire place seems to be blooming wildly in the darkness. That it’s wet and heavy from a storm that’s long passed. 

Jinyoung doesn’t hesitate to wade through the marsh and into the waters of the fountain itself. Because Jaebeom is there too, knee-deep, his face hidden by the falling moonlight. 

Jinyoung struggles to walk through the dark waters, an odd thickness sinking into his toes, weighing at the heat in his chest. He can’t speak - all he knows is that he needs Jaebeom to look at him before he sinks somehow into the warmth and flood of the summer night. 

The fountain gleams a pale shade of red around his knees, and he pants, finally latching onto Jaebeom by the shoulders.

In the dark and in the light, the shadows on Jaebeom’s cheeks are black hewn silk. Cold enough to wrap around the gnarled knuckles of the marble dead, praying for life long after their death. Jaebeom himself is so pale and soft, and where Jinyoung’s hands grip him, bruises are already growing under the crumpled folds of the shirt. 

His eyes are blurred by the gleaming twists of his hair - and his hair is so long already, Jinyoung notes deliriously. 

Beneath a black veil, his lips part, and Jinyoung sees - they’re red enough to bleed. 

“Jaebeom,” he speaks, slowly, achingly, as his fingers dig in deep, bruising bone, “what have you done?” 

Jaebeom turns to him with a little stretch of his neck, an odd tilt to his head. He smiles and there is blood on his teeth. 

(The bird was quiet).

Jaebeom’s hands find his, and his fingers push into the tendons of his wrist, and when was Jaebeom’s grip ever this strong -

Then, he’s not thinking at all as Jaebeom fits Jinyoung’s palms to his own face, and Jinyoung touches the blood gleaming on his lips. The tiny drops smear beneath his thumbs. 

Where the red slashes sit like open wounds, his skin begins to pulse, blood-sodden and swollen with a heat that has been there all along. 

Jaebeom watches him with bottomless eyes as he takes Jinyoung’s thumb into his mouth and sucks. With his gleaming lips and bruised teeth, he sucks it clean. 

Jinyoung blinks because there is suddenly only the red of Jaebeom’s mouth, the black ink of the water, and the pure white of the moon in Jaebeom’s eyes. 

There’s only the smoke rising in his parched throat that asks for relief in the soft heat beneath his palms. 

He falls to his knees in the rippling water with Jaebeom’s palms catching him before he can drown. 

…

There is no recollection of the beginning nor middle of the night dyed red by moonlight, but the end comes to Jinyoung in a state of soaked shock. 

He’s wet everywhere - his hair dripping into his eyes, the taste of iron and flesh and cool water coating his tongue. His face is plastered to the bone, brittle enough that the passing breeze could cut across his cheek and leave him bleeding. 

Numb, he finds that his trousers are open, the laces weaving lightly across the surface of the water. 

Jaebeom lays across from him, his neck reclined archly over the edge of the fountain. The waters lap at the rising curves of his body, spilling into the slashes of his thighs, pooling into the dip of his stomach. It looks like he’s disappearing wherever the dark pool touches the edge of his glittering skin. 

His legs fall open before Jinyoung, and Jinyoung sees - the thick hints of his own release overflowing from inside of Jaebeom. 

Jaebeom lazily raises his head and he smiles unevenly, the weight of his own hair still dragging across the water. One pale hand splashes through its heavy depths to find Jinyoung’s clenched fingers. 

One by one, Jaebeom coaxes him open until they’re gripping at each other, hands folded as if in prayer. 

Jaebeom plays with the waters floating above his stomach with the other hand, trailing light, growing circles like little moons there. Then, his palm settles, solid and unmoving with promise.

Jinyoung hates himself, the sick urge in his stomach, but he immediately thinks of a darling girl with silver hair and Jaebeom’s guileless eyes. He thinks of her in the cradle of their arms, a blessing, and his knuckles turn white in their shared prayer. 

Like that, Jaebeom falls asleep, the edge of his cheek dipping into the pool as moonlight slides down his lashes. His mouth opens slightly, blooming pink and clean now. 

Like that, Jinyoung hauls him out by his limp arms, carries him on his back, and falls into bed with wide shivering eyes and something slick drying on his skin.

Jaebeom doesn’t wake, but Jinyoung can’t sleep even as he wraps himself around Jaebeom, skin to skin, so he can feel the familiarity of their shared nights. He clenches his eyes shut and digs his nose into the crook of Jaebeom’s shoulder. Dreams sleeplessly and wishes he could bury himself in deeper, as much as possible. 

He’s cold and it’s too quiet without the bird’s cries to mark the end of night. 

_the blessing_

The _dove_ and the sparrow, Jinyoung realizes with a hollow thought as he examines the empty cage hanging from their windowsill. 

It’s so apparent now in the sharp panes of daylight - the little door swinging on its curved hinges, only a few downy feathers whispering the innocent traces of what used to be. 

_-it was Jaebeom...he must have been out there the entire night, doing nothing but staring up at the moon._

Jinyoung swings the empty cage shut, fitting the golden latch into its hole. The tips of his fingers hurt from the delicate mechanism he’s rarely ever touched. 

Jaebeom remains in their bed, long past noon. 

The queen’s words are now an urgent warning in his mind, a premonition rather than a hint. It’s useless though - what came after is how Jaebeom is now, mute with just the slightest piece broken off of him.

He doesn’t know what else could be taken, doesn’t know how he’ll be able to look into Jaebeom’s dazed eyes after this and not feel like a part of himself is missing in return. 

Jaebeom won’t wake, but he kicks up a fuss whenever anyone else but Jinyoung touches him. His hands are cupped over his stomach, the cradle of a pale church steeple. The line of his mouth is harsh, obstinate and unmoving as he sets his body against the rest of the world. 

Jinyoung worms his palm across Jaebeom’s stomach a few times, and he’s always burning up. He can feel it, even through the layers of blankets between them. It’s a fever for an upcoming cold from wading around in stale pond water in the middle of the night (among other things). 

It has to be, he thinks, tracing back the fine hairs strewn over Jaebeom’s forehead. 

He feeds Jaebeom spoonfuls of soup, carefully working them in between parted lips. Even asleep, Jaebeom swallows easily, almost seeking after the empty curve of the spoon when Jinyoung pulls back. 

Jinyoung reaches out to touch him, adoringly so, and Jaebeom finds the warmth of his palm in his sleep.

 _Darling_ , Jinyoung wants to cry out his frustrations in sweet nothings, finger trembling on the edge of Jaebeom’s slight breath, _how could I go on without you_?

He does the only thing he can - he stays at Jaebeom’s side. 

And when day passes, he helplessly locks the door and crawls into bed, holding Jaebeom as close as possible to him. It’s automatic now, their hands cradle tightly over the swell of his stomach. 

The night passes like that, and Jinyoung is almost fooled. That it will all pass like this. 

He spends the next day and the next at the bedside. At night, he locks the door and fits himself over Jaebeom’s back, into the crook of his knees. The hot pulse of his stomach. 

Jaebeom barely shifts in his sleep, only huffing a slight breath when Jinyoung touches him. 

He’s not getting any better, but the door is locked and at least Jinyoung won’t lose him to a strange siren call in the night again. 

He closes his eyes and holds on with a numb devastation. Jaebeom won’t leave him.

-But in truth, he really had held out too much hope for that locked door.

He wakes, silent, breathless, and alone, and the door is hanging open as if someone had purposefully left it that way. Moonlight spills out from beyond its frame in clean edges, a path beckoning just for him. 

Jinyoung is still dressed from the day, and he goes immediately, a new riding cloak ready in hand. 

His boots tread easily over the night brush, and there is no surge of red flashing across the light to guide his vision this time. Despite everything, he breathes out in the cool air. He knows exactly where to go. 

In the overflowing fountain, Jinyoung’s shirt on the still curve of Jaebeom’s shoulders stands out like soaked marble rising from the water. His face is turned to the moon, the rest of his body held so loosely he might fall.

There’s something in his arms. Cradled, an absolution, a blessing. A prayer granted. 

Jinyoung runs to him, sopping wet earth and night be damned. 

Jaebeom’s cheek still wears the curve of the moon, but he looks at Jinyoung. Only at him. The clear water laps up to their thighs, but it’s not cold or strange as it soaks through Jinyoung’s pants, wets the bareness of Jaebeom’s thighs.

Jinyoung looks back at Jaebeom, the bright adoration in his eyes, and he sees him truly. For the first time all over again, it’s Jaebeom beneath the moon and their child cradled in their arms. 

He doesn’t know what to say for an eternity of lapping water and still, glittering light. 

Her face is so round and her cheeks so soft. She holds onto one finger with a scowl, and Jinyoung wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Then, Jaebeom shivers and Jinyoung remembers where they are - the moon at their backs, the fountain draining beneath their feet. The water now at their knees, he can see pink trails of blood mixing and running down Jaebeom’s thighs. 

He pulls the cloak around him, tying it gently over the crest of his arms cradling the baby - _their_ daughter. Still, Jaebeom’s shivers only grow, the pooled droplets flickering in the ruddy dips of his knees. 

“Are you still bleeding?” Jinyoung whispers, pulling him closer, already dropping a hand to his thigh. 

Jaebeom shakes, a little jerk of his head, and he only steps closer, closer than Jinyoung’s palm gripping his back, his hand gently soothing between his legs. He only looks at Jinyoung with teary eyes, and his mouth moves:

_ours, jinyoung, ours._

It’s the shape of words, never spoken, but Jinyoung can hear him. As clear as moonlight ringing out across the water. 

He replies in turn, and perhaps there are silver tears on his lashes as well. But it’s only the softness of Jaebeom’s lips, the trembling happiness that threatens to spill over forever into the night between them. 

“Yes, Jaebeom, she’s ours. Ours.” 


	2. epilogue.

_tell me things I already know_

As embarrassing it is, Yugyeom is the one to find them in the garden, huddled and soaked up to their waists. 

Jinyoung feels bad for having terrorized him so in the past. The look on his face in the horror of moonlight - he was practically going to expire on the spot. He recovers quick enough with an expression of delight and pure joyous wonder as he rushes to Jaebeom. 

Word spreads quickly enough through the palace — and then the entire kingdom. 

The royal nursery grows crowded with maids, physicians, emissaries, and messengers. Much to Jaebeom’s disapproval, of course. He was practically climbing over the top of the crib when the first maid arrived. 

It’s a necessary formality, but even Jinyoung is on edge at all the strangers groveling before the crib. Before their _daughter_ , Byulyi. Named ever so appropriately for the only one who had witnessed her birth. 

His grip on Jaebeom’s straining arm is practically the only excuse that keeps him rooted to the spot, the flat smile even on his face. Jaebeom audibly hissing at a few sniveling dukes also brings him flashes of actual amusement. 

Father’s visit is long-anticipated, and with it, he brings news of a wedding and a coronation in one. 

His grey-eyed approval makes something so tight loosen for the first time in Jinyoung’s throat. Jaebeom noses across his cheek at the strangeness stealing over his face. 

Jinyoung pulls himself together with a brush of their overlapping fingertips. 

“I’m honored, Father.” He has to take another breath. “As your second son, I accept.” 

Father smiles, and it feels right, the same poise and ease on his own expression. “I suppose it feels right this way.” 

_After all_ , his eyes seem to say, _isn’t this what you’ve always wanted_?

Jinyoung’s smile doesn’t give anything away as his arm winds around Jaebeom’s waist. He is, after all, his father’s son. 

Amidst the slow sun pouring into the hush of the nursery, Jinyoung catches the uncertain flash of Mark’s face passing by the open doorway. 

Jaebeom’s head nuzzles into the crook of his shoulder, noon drowsiness fast approaching, and Jinyoung tucks thoughts of his brother away as he runs idle fingers through rumpled locks. 

-

“Know that I feel bad, but I won’t apologize for something we’ve both wanted,” is how Jinyoung greets Mark by the open moonlight.

Mark doesn’t turn to heed his words, only leaning a little further beyond the railing. His face is blank, simply seeking out the moon above. 

He mutters a second later, and there’s definitely some resentment there. “What, for you to have everything, and me - nothing?”

“You must really hate me.” He finishes, starkly cutting into the distance held between them.

And it’s like this all over again, how they’re only ever able to spark fires with their loosely tossed words. Never understanding, never agreement for light rain after the dry storm.

The hunched curve of Mark’s back tenses with slipping shadows, but Jinyoung raises one hand to his shoulder, and somehow, Mark does not push away from his touch.

Jinyoung turns to him earnestly in that held space of apprehension and contrition. He confesses. “I don’t hate you. I never have.” 

Mark smiles bluntly, and it’s honestly like the turned handle of a knife, held steady by the blade instead. “Of course, you just wanted the crown.” 

A jab from one to another. Jinyoung winces, taking it in stride. 

“You hated it after all,” he smiles. His hand falls away, but there is something in the way their shoulders bump, reminiscent of closer times. 

It’s not the same now, but neither of them want to step away. 

“True,” Mark rolls his eyes, “now _you_ can suffocate under its weight.” 

“And what will you do-,” Jinyoung retorts, folding his hands over the railing, “laze around for the rest of your life without a single care for our kingdom?” 

Trading barbs like this and watching the moonlit night between glowing marble, it’s like the equivalent of a nice stroll for them. Jinyoung thinks he’d like to do this more often. 

“You wouldn’t let me butt into your work anyway. Masochist.” Mark scrunches his nose in obvious distaste, and Jinyoung feigns displeasure back with a press of his lips.

It feels nice, though. Almost like he might laugh. 

Mark steps away, and Jinyoung already misses the brush of their shoulders. But they’ve come this far, and Jinyoung knows when not to push. Mark has always been the one to leave first, to show him the confident, leisurely back of a big brother. Even if he’s never wanted the weight of that title on his shoulders, he’s carried it for long enough. 

Long enough for Jinyoung to take it from him. 

“Don’t think you can marry me off either,” he tosses over his shoulder a moment later. “I’m not as agreeable as Jaebeom,” he adds as an afterthought and maybe an apology. 

Jinyoung thinks carefully before letting the casual words roll off his tongue. “If you’re thinking of marriage, perhaps you should pay a visit to Prince Jackson.” 

To his surprise (and maybe utter disgust), Mark’s face blooms a dark red in the night. 

Jinyoung does not like this revelation, and some part of him is already cursing Jackson’s sly grin. He knew that talk about seeing Mark once a year was complete bullshit. 

He should have let Mark have the last word, as always. Truly, as he and his brother awkwardly scurry away from one another, he regrets having said anything. 

Somehow, he thinks he should resign himself to a future where the thought of _Mark_ will inevitably be followed by _Jackson._

-

The bed is empty with the imprint of covers around a bare spot that suspiciously fits the shape of Jaebeom’s body. 

Jinyoung isn’t worried, but the lack of sleep is beginning to set his nerves on edge. It’s selfish, but at this point, all he wants is to close his eyes to Jaebeom’s steady weight against his chest. 

Jaebeom is in the nursery, untied hair curtaining his face from view. Jinyoung can guess though - the surreptitious drooping of his eyes, his lips seeking out the clean warmth of their daughter’s cheek over and over again. 

He drapes himself over Jaebeom’s back, and his dream from so long ago is realized, glittering in moonlight before him.

He presses a blind kiss into the mess of Jaebeom’s hair. Jaebeom turns in his hold and he smiles, a little swollen from sleep, uneven, and lovely.

“Are you talking to her?” Jinyoung asks in the peaceful quiet, and perhaps, to a dozing Byulyi. 

Jaebeom opens his lips only to close them with a muffled pop. He shrugs half-heartedly, as if to say - _what can i do?_

“You should leave it to me.” Jinyoung pulls Jaebeom flush against him, nuzzling unabashedly into his hair. After more than one night’s soak in a decrepit fountain with a seemingly bottomless source, Jaebeom still smells like fragrant bathwater. 

“I’ll teach her to call you Mother first,” he whispers because even after all this, he can’t help but tease.

Jaebeom’s elbow dislodges him for the moment. He feigns re-adjusting his grip around Byulyi as he watches Jinyoung’s wince with a sleepy, slanted look. 

Soon enough, he’s draped over Jaebeom’s warm back again, the both of them nodding off above Byulyi’s picturesque little face. She wakes at some point and fusses if only to get them to lay her back down in the crib. Barely a few days old, and she’s already figured them out. 

Jinyoung has a feeling she’s going to make fools out of the both of them soon enough, and before the crown has touched his head, he already wants to see her on the throne. 

He knows things will change by the turn of the moon - even by tomorrow, the course of his life will be irreversibly different. But in the still night, it’s Jaebeom gazing so affectionately at Byulyi bathed in the moonlight, and it's all he truly wants. 

_when you see (save) me, when you touch me_

Jackson’s newest letter can be summarized in three points, and all three add onto Jinyoung’s growing pile of frustrations.

First, he argues that he should be given the title of Byulyi’s uncle because Mark barely exists in Solare at this point.

Jinyoung pens in the margin a note that Jackson should re-learn how blood relations work. 

Second, he debates within the letter many times, seemingly with himself that jackass, whether he should invite Jinyoung to his wedding when Jinyoung so subtly snubbed him of an invitation to his own. It’s going to be a summer affair, he notes smugly. 

In response, Jinyoung has his own two points. 

(1) In a quiet envelope unmarked by any royal crests is an invitation from Mark, sent before Jackson even conceived of his own marriage. They’re brothers after all. 

(2) The wedding was only a formality for the recordkeepers. He and Jaebeom had long consummated their so-called marriage bed before it was ever proper. 

Memories of the wedding night can still pull him out of any moment. Jinyoung teasing Jaebeom about a demure bride’s first night, and Jaebeom flipping him over with the most unimpressed stare. Made honest and bare before Jaebeom, he had been a child in love again. 

Third, and it’s this point that makes him pause again, fondness fading with a hint of bitterness. Jackson _cordially_ invites them to take a trip to their newest gardens, built with visitors in mind. Enthusiastically, he admits he wants to see if Byulyi will remember him, and that this time, Jinyoung must bring Jaebeom. Especially, Jaebeom - won’t he be pleased to try out a new setting?

To this, Jinyoung’s pen hesitates, scratching a shuddering line down the parchment before he sets it aside entirely. 

He remembers something Mark said to him so long ago that was repeated again on a recent visit. 

-”Do you remember,” he glances at his brother at his side, keeping an eye on Jaebeom tumbling around with Byulyi in the garden, “when you said that he wasn’t mine to keep?” 

“Yeah,” Mark snorts, “you were seriously going to push me over the balcony.” 

“I was not.” Jinyoung covers his irritation with a smooth smile. Then, he reminds himself to drop all pretenses because this is his brother and he wants the truth. 

“What did you mean by that?”

Mark shrugs, looking at Jinyoung curiously. “It means what it means, I suppose. You looked like you were ready to do anything for so long, but you can’t make someone stay against their will.” 

He glances away, a wry tug at the corner of his smile. “Either that or I just wanted to piss you off because you were being such a brat.” 

It’s Jinyoung’s turn to scoff now. “Asshole. I should’ve known.” 

Mark turns to face him fully, serious enough that Jinyoung thinks he’s going to get a big-brother lecture that they’ve both long outgrown. 

“Were you really hung up on that all this time?” He’s a little unsteady, as if really regretting every stone, dagger, and flint thrown between them.

Jinyoung’s momentary silence is met by Mark’s hand jerking him to look over the high balcony. 

It’s the same sight, but he is no less adoring of it. Jaebeom sitting in a golden-green flutter of grass and dandelion dust with Byulyi shrieking in his bouncing arms. Her pure silver hair tangles beneath the same sunlight as his gleaming dark locks. 

“Look-,” Mark gestures gently, “what does it matter if he’s happy? If he’s chosen to stay here anyway?” 

And in that moment, Mark’s words had been true as Jaebeom had held Byulyi up to wave at him with a smile that promised, seemingly, to stay forever -

Now, he can’t remember the last time he was able to enjoy the simple sight of Jaebeom in the gardens. 

The last time he was even able to look upon Jaebeom and kiss him in the wake of morning with foolish whispers of nothing and everything. 

Kingship is busy, and kingship is rewarding in the most tenuous of ways, but Jinyoung feels like he’s messing up something else entirely in return for his service to the kingdom. Between the crown and Jaebeom is the very definition of his life. 

He can’t choose, but perhaps that’s where Byulyi comes in. 

Literally, bursting through the doorway in her sleek little riding boots, silver plaits coming loose over pink cheeks as she proudly asserts the newest stack of letters over Jinyoung’s desk - and herself in his lap. 

God, she’s everything. The sun, moon, stars, and Jaebeom’s smile in one.

“Thank you, Byulyi.” He ignores the growing work pile in favor of squishing her against his chest, resting his cheek momentarily on her beautiful head. 

“Of course Father,” she pats pragmatically at his arms, until he lets go to sift through the letters. In a twist of fate, she has his eyes instead, always thinking, always planning with quick little looks. 

Work slows enjoyably in the noon hours, Byulyi warm and lively in his lap as he pens responses with one hand and undoes her plaits with the other. 

She fidgets with something in her slim, pale fingers, and in between letters, Jinyoung finally realizes why it keeps catching at the corner of his eye. 

It’s the leather band he gave Jaebeom, a renewal of a promise, but now loose and draped over their daughter’s hands. 

“Byulyi,” he asks slowly, “where did you get that necklace from?” 

She waves it up at his nose noncommittally, and her answer is even more vague and worrying. “Mother told me he misses you.” 

“Did he now,” Jinyoung entertains her, carefully plucking the band from her raised hand. “And did he say those words exactly?” 

“Yes. He said so.” Byulyi blinks plainly with her sharp eyes, and Jinyoung despairs a little because despite her acute awareness at her age it’s simply too early for her to learn to lie to him.

She must see the look on his face because she immediately goes to soothe his cheek with a pat of her miniature palm. It doesn’t quite work, but Jinyoung knows it’s an imitation of what she’s seen Jaebeom do to him so many times before. It helps, if only a little. 

“Father, Mother looks at you all the time.” She’s so serious, the flower bud perk of her lips set into a determined pout, Jinyoung really thought she was going to tell him something. 

As it is, he’s simply confused.

He chalks it up to a child’s observations, cradling her hand beneath his own as he tries to find the right response. “Of course he does, darling. You know, I like looking at him too.”

“No-,” she kicks up an immediate fuss in his lap, and even at such a young age, Jinyoung can tell she’s going to be such a handful when she’s grown. A delightful, stubborn handful of a princess who’s going to wear the proud sun on her brow and the moon like a blessing in her hair. 

Byulyi settles herself with a little huff. “He’s always looking at you, even when you aren’t. Mother smiles at you for no reason at all, and you never see it.”

She emphasizes every word with practiced ease, so cogent Jinyoung is almost impressed enough by her tone to not register what it is she’s actually saying.

Then, he blinks. He supposes if Jaebeom was doing such a thing when he wasn’t looking, he would never have noticed. 

Byulyi pulls at his sleeve, fixing him with a grey gaze he’s intimately familiar with. “That’s why you should be worried, Father. Mother looks so lonely now, and you never see it because you’re not looking back at him.”

She ends it with a brisk nod, and Jinyoung really is the fool. What did he know of childish assumptions, when his 10-year old daughter saw things he never could as _king._

“Well then,” he bounces her in his arms, rising to his feet, “if I’m not looking hard enough, can you show me where he is?” 

Byulyi squeals girlishly, her hands flailing at his shoulders, and she finally looks her age with her cheeks shaking in pink, blushing laughter. 

…

Surprisingly, they don’t have to go far with Jaebeom already striding down the sunlit hall with his gaggle of maids. 

"Mother!"

Byulyi slips out from his arms, tumbling directly to her feet and running towards Jaebeom with an unexpected amount of athleticism. The lost worry on Jaebeom’s face is gone immediately as he bends and receives her hug with the practice of someone who’s been knocked over many times before. 

Jinyoung quickens his step to meet them. 

There’s something special about watching Byulyi in Jaebeom’s arms. The way she clings to him so fiercely, her fingers digging into his neck and how in return, he softens completely with open kisses all over her face, her silken hair. The way his mouth moves in impressions of a whisper, a secret for just the two of them. 

Jinyoung adores her just as much, and she knows just exactly how much. There’s never any need to act on it as immediately, but he finds hours passing in seconds through the flickers of quick conversation between them. 

When he looks at Byulyi with Jaebeom, his heart gives way tenderly. It’s a feeling he’s still getting used to. 

“You’re here,” he greets simply, placing his own kiss on Jaebeom’s brow. 

Jaebeom’s returning smile says, _and so I am._

He reaches around Byulyi, tightly latched to Jaebeom’s shirt, to fit the leather band around Jaebeom’s bare neck again. Even without seeing his hands, he finishes the tie with a perfect butterfly knot. 

Jaebeom touches his neck with a small hitch of breath, and Byulyi looks up at him sharply. 

Jaebeom pauses, seemingly unsure, before he lowers a grabby Byulyi to the floor. In truth, Jinyoung was thinking the same thing. 

They need to talk - or Jinyoung should talk and Jaebeom will give him whatever semblance of communication he’s capable of. 

“Byulyi,” he nudges at her shoulder gently with his palm, “run along for now.” 

A maid comes to take her hand, and she glances at the both of them. After a moment’s consideration, she finds whatever answer she was looking for and allows herself to be brushed along in a train of black and white skirts. 

Jinyoung finally turns to Jaebeom in the radiant break of noonday, and Jaebeom - he speaks.

“Jinyoung,” he folds Jinyoung’s hands over his own cheeks with a slow flutter of his lashes, “I missed you.” 

Jinyoung had wanted nothing more than for Jaebeom to call out his name one day, but this-

“Jaebeom-” He gapes and Jaebeom laughs, a deep, stuttering sound.

“When did you - this entire time— you’ve been talking to Byulyi- ”

Jinyoung flounders, so unlike himself, and Jaebeom smiles that smile where his cheeks push out beneath his eyes and he genuinely looks so pleased. 

Finally, Jinyoung’s mouth closes around something that’s just on the side of too tender. A little bit of heartbreak.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” 

Jaebeom’s answer is one of pure adoration. A bloom under the sunshine and pale marble.

He cups Jinyoung’s cheek, and Jinyoung is finally seeing him, seeing the way Jaebeom looks back at _him_ -

“I didn’t need to when you were here, with me. Always.” His eyes close slowly as if realizing a secret between himself and the sun caught on his lashes. 

“I wasn’t though, I’m not,” Jinyoung stutters because he’s lovely like this. Always leaning into Jinyoung’s touch, parting his dark, gleaming eyes beneath the press of his thumb. As if Jinyoung had been the one to save him when he did no such thing. 

Jaebeom turns to kiss the delicate point of his wrist. He doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t need to when Jinyoung understands. 

_Stay_ , he asks with the sound of sunshine spilling over their rustling blankets in shared mornings. 

_Stay_ , and Jinyoung does. 

_swear by the moon_

“Should we make another child?” Jinyoung smiles cheekily in the light of the full moon.

Jaebeom tosses his head firmly against the pillow, closing his eyes. Still, his legs fall open around Jinyoung’s hips. 

Jinyoung will always remember when he entertained the thought of different Jaebeoms on branching veins of butterfly wings. Dreams of distorted laughter that disappeared with the sun in the odd stillness of Jaebeom’s kingdom beyond the forest. 

There are no such thoughts now. Not in Solare, not in his kingdom with their daughter and their home.

For all his careful scheming and ambition, Jinyoung has ended up with everything, one haphazard way or another. 

O’ swear not by the moon, that ever inconstant and fickle moon in her many temporal phases. He’s read the tricky fable a million times over, but he thinks of it now, admiring the dark freckles on Jaebeom’s eyes, his cheek, his chest, glimmering beneath her bare shadow. 

Swearing by the moon, Jinyoung presses into the soft give of Jaebeom’s parted thighs, for there, she has given him everything and more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to yugyeom and the maids in this fic, they were unduly tortured for the sake of jjp angst lol  
> thank you for reading! this fic started out as a collection of images i wanted to see played out and then eventually it grew into this full-fledged au with its own delicate shadows behind its characters. i feel so strongly for it haha, like waking up to thoughts of it, it still feels so embedded in my brain - my baby i am proud of you and i'm letting you go now :'''''')  
> please let me know what you thought of it! anything and everything is appreciated!
> 
> twitter: [*](https://twitter.com/happycakecries)

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative titles: local prince does not realize he has a breeding kink until it’s too late, jinyoung tries to scheme and becomes a simp instead, jinyoung - teen father.
> 
> thank u for reading this exhaustive piece of work god i'm tired haha. please let me know what you thought! anything and everything is appreciated. 
> 
> twitter: [*](https://twitter.com/happycakecries)


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